We Are Golden
by Leuny
Summary: Nobody knows who Kaitô Kid truly is. Right? One carelessly uttered threat can change everything. Rejoice: Two Kid heists in the first chapter! Rating might go up as the story proceeds. Aaaand here's the long-awaited EXPLOSION! Have fun reading! ... anybody wants to guess as to where Kaito's headed now? ; )
1. Teenage Dreams In A Teenage Circus

_Teenage dreams in a teenage circus_

**Disclaimer:** Nope, neither Magic Kaito nor Detective Conan belongs to me! *whistles innocently* Regardless, I'm playing around with them and hope you enjoy the first installment of my new ff!

**AN**: This is – very loosely – based on my first fan fiction which is called Roller Coaster Murder Case and which you can find here: http:(slash) (slash) www (dot) fanfiction (dot) net (slash) s/7400686/1/Roller_Coaster_Murder_Case , however the events in this fan fiction are only alluded to much later in this story. They are nevertheless important, so I'll let you know in an AN at the beginning of the chapter they're needed in so you can go back and (re-?)read it!

Translation: Keibu = Inspector. Nakamori-keibu: Inspector Nakamori.

_TeenageDreamsInATeenageCircus_

**Outsider POV**

Having slowed his steps to a leisure walk, he reached tonight's heist location. He wasn't in a hurry at all any more: the heist was supposed to start in fifteen minutes. He could just make out the policemen running around and making last-minute adjustments to their plans. It was the usual, really.

He wasn't sure how some of the fans could run around in skirts and T-shirts, though he guessed it all depended on the focus of attention. Pulling his black coat closer to his body at the chill that permeated the air, he made his way over to a better viewpoint. He was already used to the fans that had gathered at the entrance of the small museum, after all.

Earlier he'd been able to make out the bright yellow sign of a small café almost opposite of the museum where he now intended to spend the evening and check up on his emails. Entering the building, going up the stairs to the café on the second floor, a delightfully refreshing breeze wafted over to him and he perked up immediately at the coffee residue he could smell in it.

He allowed a small smile to ghost over his face, there and then gone again. They had coffee. Sighing in anticipation of getting some very-much-needed caffeine into himself, he made his way to the booth at the window after having been pointed in that direction. He'd – officially – reserved it for himself earlier that week. It had been a sensible decision to do so right after the police had deciphered the heist location from the riddle Kid had sent them, he mused while sitting down, seeing how all the other booths were already been filled up with Kid-fans and (few though there were) commuters alike.

Used to the mayhem already, he let the excited atmosphere wash over him like a blanket, covering him with a certain sense of déjà-vu that he got every time he went to a Kid heist nowadays, and he quietly snorted to himself. Just what did they want? It wasn't as though Kid handed out autographs at his heist. Both he and the police usually were much too busy to be doing anything besides running.

For a short moment he allowed himself to imagine the confusion that would occur if Kid indeed did hand out autographs on his heists. The thief would of course wear his uniform, his hat and that famous monocle, lounging leisurely in a chair that had been provided for him and still making not one crinkle appear in his suit. He'd wear that annoying, self-righteous grin, too, naturally. You couldn't have one without the other, could you? That smirk didn't belong to anybody else. Maybe he should tell the thief that he ought to trademark it sometime?

Then there'd be the others: the police might assist him and keep his fans in a straight line behind a barrier, only letting through one at a time, so as not to crowd the thief too much. And at the very front of the line would be standing his very own Task Force, valiantly trying to get his autograph before anybody else. Right. And then cows would come flying by and cats and dogs would truly fall down from heaven.

His mind was going crazy, he thought to himself. Shaking his head bemusedly at the picture that had appeared in his head at what he'd imagined, he placed his order, an espresso and a glass of water, the same as every time he came to watch a heist.

By then he'd pretty much figured out the schedule that Kid usually worked with: he'd come in at the appointed time, do his show (took about an hour, two, tops), and then leave all the policemen stunned with whatever trick it was that he'd done to entertain them with this time and get out about two to three hours after the heist started. And then normally the gem, painting, statue or whatever else the pesky thief had chosen to steal at the heist would turn up about a week or two after it had been stolen.

It was good, the man mused, that he'd delegated the duty of watching said nuisance of a phantom thief (who was doing his job in white, just to throw everybody off!) to two of his "acquaintances" that still owed him some favors. It was a plus, he supposed, that one of them was a policeman and part of the very task force that was chasing the Kaitô. Wearily, he opened his laptop and checked his email account. No new emails.

Letting out another sigh, he prepared himself for another long wait for the end of the heist. He'd come there, drink his coffee and leave again once the chaos was over. That was all that was expected from him, really. At the beginning, when Kaitô Kid had first reappeared, _they_ hadn't been too concerned. He'd just do his thing and _they_ did _theirs_ – as long as the reappeared white circus clown didn't come close to any of _their_ endeavors, _they_ were happy.

When a year had passed, the Kaitô still hadn't been caught and was getting dangerously close, they'd slowly begun to take the white pest more seriously. They had wanted him to figure out just who Kid was, then. Seeing as that endeavor had ended in fruitless misguidance (planned and executed beautifully by the thief, he was sure) every time he'd tried to get any closer to that, _they_'d decided to simply set more people on that task, in the hopes of then being able to successfully attain said information.

Tsking in annoyance, he thought back to the very first attempt of having more people around the thief. It had been a disaster! They'd literally crowded him, making it impossible for anybody to see whether the thief had already taken the treasure or not and not to mention making it even easier than usual for the magician to get away afterwards. He himself had realized that early on, of course. However nobody had deemed it necessary to listen to him. Naturally, it had ended in yet another failure to obtain the wanted information. The thief had been dancing circles around all their heads from the beginning; he seemed to be the only one who had seen it from the start.

After that attempt, _they_'d employed several others while he'd been watching from the side lines, content to let _them_ have as many goes at failure as _they_'d needed to figure out what _they_ should do next. So long as that was not clear, _they_'d simply installed him again as a kind of guardian-watchdog. He was supposed to act as an information-gatherer and report back on the thief every few months. That was easy once he'd set in place his acquaintances and informants. They'd been invaluable in that aspect.

As apparently the thief kept to Japan as his main place of interest, _they_ had stopped worrying as much after a few more months. They'd been afraid he'd go abroad, he mused, but why? What was so dangerous about the thief doing that that they'd been worrying like that? He was just an underling, waaaaay under the higher-ups, so he supposed it was just fair that he wasn't privy to all the important information. However he couldn't help but wonder.

What if the Kaitô decided it was time his heists were performed for a decidedly bigger – and at the same time more international – audience? Would _they_ then scramble to keep up with the moonlighting magician? It would most certainly make for far more entertainment than he was having at the moment, that was for sure. Resigning himself to yet another long four-hour-wait until the first of his acquaintances could safely report back to him, he opened the internet browser and started looking for ads for jewels that could be of interest for the thief's next venture into the open. You could never plan too far ahead, after all.

_TeenageDreamsInATeenageCircus_

**FBI Agent POV**

She'd been asked to "assist the police", but in reality she was wondering just why her friend had wanted her to come. It was a game, she thought for the nth time that day already. It was all a game, staged and played by the grand thief himself, with only him being privy to all the rules. Why would she, an FBI-agent, feel the need to be included in it?

She sighed wearily to herself. But her friend had asked – no, almost begged – her to come. So come, she did. However she'd return as soon as she thought tonight's heist was over, she had sworn that to herself quietly. She had a job to do, as well.

Thus, already feeling comfortable in the chaos of a pre-heist-preparation, the woman leaned against a pillar from where she could see pretty much every corner of the room where the gem had been stored. It was a beautiful stone, she had to admit grudgingly. And it wasn't as though she didn't enjoy a good show.

She had heard that the Kaitô was mainly a showman, always performing huge shows with unbelievable (or so they had told her) tricks that nobody could see through! Apparently. "Are the policemen chasing after Kid all such weaklings?" letting a dejected huff escape, she put more of her weight on the right foot, so that she could stand in a more comfortable position.

She'd crossed her arms long ago, when she'd first arrived only to catch a glimpse of unrestricted mayhem anywhere she looked. It was a wonder, really, how the task force members still seemed to know what they were supposed to be doing and where they were supposed to stand/go in spite of what was going on. Shaking her head in order to let any other derogatory thoughts and comments on her part disappear far into her mind again, she looked around.

And in the next moment wished she hadn't.

_TeenageDreamsInATeenageCircus_

**Kuroba Kaito POV**

The night was clouded when the train he had taken reached the train station of Sagamihara. But it didn't matter. He'd just get the gem and look at it whenever the moon deigned to come out in the next few days. The heist location this time was this small town outside Tokyo. It actually consisted of four towns that had melted into one ages ago, but the city itself was nothing if not up-to-date. Its proximity to Tokyo made it very attractive for commuters to live in, so he could blend in quite well if he timed this right.

There were small pubs and cafés all over the place – he'd sat down in one of them, ordered a coke and regarded the scene of police cars driving by every few minutes. The pre-heist preparation the police and his fans went through every time was crazy and continued to amaze – and at the same time amuse – him every single time he saw them do it.

It was almost like a ritual: After the police had done everything in their power to persuade them not to and had utterly failed at it, the gem owners would give out information about the heist location a few days before or right on the day just before the heist itself (quite some of his fans had missed the last one, he grumbled to himself good-naturedly) and few fans would be prone to come and watch the show. It didn't keep the most-devoted ones from coming, nevertheless; Kaito thought to himself with a mischievous smile. Still, the police tried to convince the owners every single time not to give out any information at all, even though they rarely ever succeeded.

And he didn't know who was more fun to watch: the police scrambling to get the fans out of some more "sensitive" areas or the fans already used to the police's antics and coming back in again silently when no one was looking in their direction during a moment of inattention. Some of his more determined fans had even entered the building– successfully and multiple times – shortly before the heist was supposed to start. It goes to show just how well the police _really_ keep guard, doesn't it?

Amused, he thought that it was most probably due to the non-violent rules he had applied from the beginning that his fans even thought of doing those things. But he supposed it was good that the police kept an eye out for those people and stopped them from entering as much as they could. It wasn't his responsibility to keep them safe, though Kaito honestly tried to ensure that nobody ever got hurt. Although it truly shouldn't be his responsibility _in the first place_, he thought with a small shake of the head.

With a frown he remembered the danger they'd put themselves up for if they managed to come as close to him as the Crows did. That was his term for the police. They were like crows, running around and trying to keep from hurting one another with the large beaks they had. And really, what else were their pistols, if not extended beaks? They could snap at him all they wanted, he'd never fall down from the sky.

Snorting to himself, he started thinking about the idea he'd gotten on his last heist. Kaito had felt watched then. He didn't know where it came from, nor why, but somehow he'd simply _known_ that it was the same person that had been watching him multiple times, on various heists, before. He was 99% sure of this. Maybe it wasn't even just one person but more, only acting for the same organization? He couldn't be sure of that. It was, after all, only a feeling he had. And it really wouldn't do for him not to feel when he was being watched if he wanted to keep clear of the bullets the men-in-brown kept shooting at him.

It hadn't been as much as before, though.

On the last heist (attended only by the police, because they'd successfully managed to convince the owner of the gem out of publicizing the heist right in time) he'd felt his neck prickle and his awareness of his surroundings increase tenfold.

He was sure by now that his watcher was a policeman. How he'd infiltrated the police force was for another time to find out, but the why had been pretty obvious to him, previously. Until nothing out of the ordinary happened. Then it had thrown him off kilter.

Why would someone watch Kid unless they wanted to kill him? Was his watcher waiting for him to make a mistake again? (At the start of his career, he'd made loads of them… fortunately for the young thief, the police hadn't been as competent as to pick up on them, then. As for nowadays… well, he avoided making mistakes in general and hoped for the best while preparing for the worst anyways.)? What was he waiting for?

There were too many possible outcomes for him to simply discard the watcher as harmless. He'd be on his guard around the police even more than usual, he decided.

Letting himself drift towards happier thoughts, he smirked. He was going through all the things he'd prepared for tonight's heist in his mind. Already getting giddy with excitement, he let the good mood take him over all at once. He'd leave the gloomy thoughts for afterwards, when he would hold up the heist gem to the moon and it would turn out to be yet another failure at obtaining Pandora.

For now, he'd happily fall into his role as Kid and revel in the anticipation of yet another show that he'd present to his fans. Grinning to himself, he wondered what kinds of faces would greet him once it came to the main attraction of his show for tonight.

_TeenageDreamsInATeenageCircus_

Grinning evilly, the teenager-turned-thief made his way to the place where he and Jii had decided to meet up after yet another accomplished job. Mentally, he proudly gave himself a pat on his back. Tonight's heist had worked out just beautifully! The treasure he'd been after this time had been carefully wrapped in a black cloth and tucked into his messenger bag so as to avoid breaking it on his journey back.

_He'd had great fun letting the police gape at the fake Kaitô Kid this time – the inflatable puppet-Kaitô-Kid-balloon had been more than four times bigger than him and had taken over most of the roofed inner atrium of the museum. It was good, he supposed, that the museum's atrium was as big as going all the four floors up. Otherwise he wouldn't have been able to include the balloon in the show. It had also been a good idea to lead all the policemen out of the inner atrium before inflating his puppet. Like this, no one had been buried underneath the massive balloon._

_Fortunately, he'd been able to get and use second-hand things in creating the super-big-Kaitô-Kid-doppelganger-balloon; otherwise he'd be broke by now. Smirking at the memory of how all the policemen could do once he'd disappeared and left the still-growing balloon in his place was stop chasing him and openly gape at it, he walked down the sideway that led directly towards the station._

_They must have thought it was him who was growing like that in the first few moments! "And what a scary thought that must have been," he quietly chuckled to himself. That had been all the distraction he'd needed to make a clean getaway via a bridge on the third floor of the building to the next building over._

_Of course, then there had been that pesky Snake issue that just had to appear right in his path as he had been on his way over to the adjacent building. The light from the alley right behind him when he'd been crossing the "bridge" had been exactly the thing the sniper had needed to make him out. He'd been balancing precariously on the ladder that he'd put down for the purpose of creating a bridge in-between the two buildings when he'd heard the gunshot and felt a sharp wind go by close to his neck._

_Kaito had dodged the bullets, no problem, but it still had made for quite a bit of danger. To think, the sniper could have hit an innocent bystander just because he'd missed and shot down into the alleyway underneath Kid by chance._

He swiftly got out of the way of some drunken business men. It wasn't even midnight yet, so commuters, Kaitô Kid fans and intoxicated men alike were on the streets, going home or making their way into one of the local pubs. Kaito had made sure that his costume didn't stick out of the crowd much before, having dressed himself as a nondescript business man in a dark blue suit, with a blue-white striped tie adorning a white chemise that he wore underneath. It was one of his fancier suits, one of his favorites that he didn't get to wear every day. He looked good in it, and he knew it.

With the lazy air of a business man coming back from a long day that had been spent doing a successful job even mauger all the hindrances that had come his way, he leisurely walked into the Domadoma, a small pub/café/restaurant close to the station, sat down at the bar and ordered an apple juice in a beer glass and an additional glass of water. He liked going to these small pubs that were a little hidden. They were strewn all over the place and pretty much only frequented by local people, seeing as you had to _know_ your way there. As a plus, you could even eat there, too.

Letting a smile graze his lips, he said, "Thanks.", once the aforementioned items were placed in front of him. "I'm not allowed to drink, order from my wife. Sometimes you just have to swindle your way through with your colleagues that you decided to meet with in the pub, don't you?" Kaito told the barkeeper with a wink. It was explanation enough and had obviously satisfied the overly curious barkeeper that had been staring at him strangely because _what_ he'd ordered and the image of _who_ he was pretending to be didn't seem to match up at all in the other's mind. Having gotten the information, the barkeeper turned towards the other customers to tend to their wishes.

That left him to ponder his own thoughts again. What he'd seen and heard after that… shooting? Murder attempt? Whatever you wanted to call it – his blood had run cold. He'd been able to pick up the thread of a rather worrying conversation. Two men had talked about the possibilities of the police finding something (_someone_?) and, after checking the contents of a certain brown bag that now had the pleasure of residing at Kaito's side on another bar stool of the Domadoma, they had left the house via the front entrance.

The five-story building that they'd had their conversation in was one that was located a few blocks over from the museum, one that he'd specifically chosen the roof of when he escaped. He'd gone from rooftop to rooftop to reach it, because it simply fit his plans. For the locks on that particular building were not all that hard to pick – both the lock on the door that led to the roof and the most important ones on all the doors on the way to the exit.

It was a perfect place for the passage from Kid the phantom thief to "business man who's minding his own business" and he'd been able to easily place his messenger bag (along with the necessary costume and a few spares – _you could never know what might happen, right?_) in that building before the heist.

When he'd heard them talking this carelessly about the police and he realized they'd apparently had an trade of some sort going on there, he'd hidden instead of going on with his escape. He hadn't really needed to hear much more in order to know that it was a shady type of exchange. And that there was money involved… a lot of money, apparently. Kaito had then proceeded to follow them out of the building and onto the lively streets of Sagamihara.

He'd been able to successfully pursue one of the two men after they'd parted ways (the one who'd gotten the bag) and then steal that self-same bag from him when the other had sat down at a bar. (_he'd originally only wanted to borrow and return it. Curiosity killed the cat, right? Well, for him, as a thief, curiosity was just one more healthy and vital characteristic. But when he'd seen the contents, he'd quite literally been stopped in his tracks._) They finally ended up close to the heist location, which struck the teenager-turned-thief as quite ironic. It just figured that he'd return to the place he'd tried to flee from in the first place.

Nevertheless, when he'd taken another look at the content to make absolutely sure he had seen what he believed he had seen, his hands were shaking from the realization that somewhere out there, _that_ kind of crime was committed. He'd known, of course, that all kinds of crimes existed in the world, it just never had really hit home for him that it could be happening this close to where he lived. When it came down to it, Kaito knew he'd been pretty sheltered while growing up.

The only people he'd had to worry about up until now had been those men-in-brown-trench-coats. And he hadn't even taken them too seriously at all, excepting those times when bullets were flying around like mad. At that moment it felt as though he'd gotten out of the frying pan and been thrown into the blazing hot fire. A cold shiver ran down his back.

The picture of _that_ in that unassuming, brown bag together with all the sobering data and the information… that had been a bit too much to stomach. Kaito would go through all that once he was home again, he had decided. Not letting anything show on his face, he internally frowned. It had seemed like an international crime at first glance, judging from the places he'd read the names of shortly in his brief glimpse of that bag's content. He would need outside help for clearing that up, then.

Getting his mind onto a completely different track, he thought that Jii shouldn't take too long now. The teenager was in a bit of a mischievous mood right now, also to get rid of any lingering dark thoughts, and he wanted to prank the old man a bit. After drinking the apple juice down a bit, he carefully added the water, measuring it out. There. Now all he had to do was wait for the old family friend to come.

_TeenageDreamsInATeenageCircus_

**FBI Agent POV**

She was flabbergasted. How could they not have seen? How could they have missed what had been going on? How? And why the hell were there snipers shooting at the thief in the middle of a Kid heist?

Dutifully, she'd kept out of the heist and all that cat-mouse-chase from the very start. Internally rolling her eyes, she'd promised the Keibu that was the appointed head of the Kaitô Kid Task Force not to butt in. It had sounded so ridiculous then. Still did. Why would she butt in if all she wanted to do was lean against some wall somewhere and safely stay away from most of the ruckus anyways?

So she hadn't barged in on it. But she couldn't help herself once she'd seen that shadow cross in front of a window on the second floor. She had looked out and seen – Kid, barely hanging onto a makeshift-bridge between the heist building and the neighboring one.

What had come next had baffled her endlessly. A gunshot had rung out and then Kid had been in a different position – as though that had still been part of the show that the magician had put on inside the building. The motion had been over so fast that she hadn't even realized he'd moved. When another gunshot had rung out, she had found the thief in a different position. It had gone on like that for a few more breathtaking moments. Yet all the time the thief had been getting closer to the edge of the other building's roof, despite the bullets whizzing past him.

In fascination – or horror, it was hard to decide – and with mounting agitation, she had watched the thief move onto the other building, after having dodged yet two more bullets – or was it three more? She couldn't tell any more, seeing as all she was focusing on was the white shape and its movements. It had been a terrifying spectacle to watch. Moreover, she realized belatedly, she had rooted for the thief-in-white during all that time.

It just didn't do for people to get hurt, or worse: killed, on her watch. Especially considering the fact that this was a Kid heist (_everybody knew about the No-one-gets-hurt-principle the elusive thief was employing!_) and that he was (mostly) harmless, anyways. He was a thief, for god's sake! Not some murderer that had to be executed on the spot! And it left her wondering. What had that one thief done to warrant such a treatment? Just what had he stolen that the other party wouldn't care to kill him?

And wouldn't it be much more sensible to leave him alive in order to find that out? So it might not be about something that he'd stolen already. But maybe this was all about something the thief was going to steal in the near future? And the other party – the one that had employed that sniper to kill him – didn't want the magician to steal it? But why? Doesn't that thief return everything he stole? At least that was what she'd heard.

Then that would mean… that the sniper party knew exactly what the thief was after and didn't want him to steal it? Wasn't the Kaitô the good one then? If that equation was right, then that would mean that Kaitô Kid rather belonged on the police's side than to that of the criminals.

Grimacing, she realized that that would throw up a whole bunch of questions that she just didn't want to answer right then. At that moment, however, everything that counted was that the police obviously hadn't seen nor heard the gunfire that had been going on between the thief and the sniper.

The only question to be answered then was the following: Had that been going on for longer than expected? Had that possibly even happened from the very start of the thieving career of the moonlighting magician? What she needed right then was to look into this. Bad guys, beware. She was on their trail now!

_TeenageDreamsInATeenageCircus_

**Kuroba Kaito POV**

About a month later brought the next Kid heist. And with it came the sneaking, the hiding and stealing, along with the dressing up, the colorful swearing and the mysterious magic that he was rumored to be able to work. It wasn't for naught, after all, that more than half of the Task Force members took all-protective charms and talismans along to their various operations and to their beds the nights after one of the scarier ones. You didn't stay on this special Task Force for long if you didn't. And if you did, well… then there was no help for you any more except for regular communication and story-swapping with your fellow sufferers and a protective item to take with you in order to stay sane.

Because sane most certainly was something that thief by far couldn't be described as. If this … "condition", for lack of a better word, had come to exist by definition (_along with the job description: Wanted! One mad individual for moonlighting: thieving operations and circus shows at night included_) or by natural inclination, outsiders couldn't tell, but it was somewhat frightening to work to arrest someone who was crazy nonetheless. And they'd been at it for longer than a year by then, too, some of them more than twenty (including Nakamori-keibu).

All the more ironic was the fact that with all their experience, not even the most devoted Task Force members could guess at the true age of their quarry. For seventeen simply wasn't the right age for that kind of profession, now was it? Youth brought agility with it however, and he desperately needed that to stay one (even better: several) steps ahead of his enemies. And that was something he'd been using a lot that night.

Grinning to himself, he slowly snuck along the wall that led away from the old lighthouse. He'd switched to a less conspicuous outfit as soon as he vacated the premises of that building, fortunately, seeing as he now didn't want to be noticed any more. The main show was over, after all.

Chancing a glance back, he saw the colorful lights streaming out of the topmost windows of the shut-down building and smirked to himself. Everything had worked out even better than he had anticipated. He allowed a grin to quickly ghost over his lips. His plans had gone off without a hitch, too. Reflecting, he thought back to the moment his plans had come into motion.

He'd baited the owner of that pretty jewel into letting it be kept safe by Nakamori-keibu and his men. They, of course, then had had a huge debate about where to hide it which he just had to butt in on. He smirked as he remembered what havoc he'd caused during that particular discussion…

_He'd disguised himself as one of the temporary members of Nakamori-keibu's task force – he knew he'd immediately be found out should he even try to use the identity of one of the senior members__and made sure to be present during the discussion about potential hiding places of the precious stone, all the while having to keep a telling smirk off of his face._

_They'd of course already suggested warded places. They had several locations that were difficult for the above-average civilian (read: him) to enter. Just as he'd predicted. In this case, though, these could only be found somewhere where there'd be a lot of people around: the bank being quite literally situated in the middle of a shopping mall, the local museum being surrounded by a rather lively shopping district (especially during the night) etc._

"_People" for Kaitô Kid meant the following: perfect camouflage, along with a quick and safe get-away. To Nakamori-keibu and his men "people" meant chaos, unpredictability and a possible way for their quarry to get away unseen. "People" also implied more variables – variables that they had no possible way to predict the movements of, could not control and simply could not afford to risk chancing. So, all of the policemen rather liked steering clear of those._

_This was also the reason why Nakamori-keibu had decided against the other task-force-members' ideas and chose the lighthouse as a hide-out for the stone – an idea that had been thrown into the round by none other than Kaito himself. Silently, he congratulated himself on a job well-done._

_And that was not to say that the location had been badly-chosen. In general, the old lighthouse was a good place to hide something in. It was a three stories high house towering on top of a cliff. Being maintained by an old lighthouse enthusiast, it had seen its last use as a proper lighthouse more than a year ago. Nevertheless it was still in prime condition, conveniently located just outside the hometown of the gem's owner._

_Most of the town's people had neglected it and allowed it to fall to ruin or survive the test of time on its own, so not many even cared to remember it was there. All in all, it would have been pretty much the perfect choice. Had the potential thief not known about it, too, that was. _

_As soon as they had realized that the member who'd suggested the lighthouse had been impersonated by Kid (which was about 10 minutes before the appointed heist-time), they had, of course, tried to relocate it immediately. The attempt, though, had proved quite pointless, seeing as the thief already had been in the lighthouse, and had noticed just what the commotion was about. He had then dutifully followed the team that had been appointed for relocation._

_Cheekily, he had appeared right in front of them on the second floor of the lighthouse, them not having gotten all too far when he deemed it time to "appear", grinned in the usual arrogant-bordering-on-crazy manner and proceeded to steal the gem right out from under their very noses shortly before disappearing in a royally pink cloud of smoke. Getting out again honestly had seemed far too easy once he'd disguised himself as a policeman and set off the smoke bombs on the second and on the topmost floor of the lighthouse. _

Slipping through a hole in the wall that he'd found earlier in the week, he came to a narrow pathway leading down through the cliffs, towards a small bay where he'd stashed his things earlier that day. The thief hadn't moved more than a few steps away from the hole and was still in sight of the lighthouse.

It was highly inconvenient, the overall appearance of the landscape around the lighthouse: flat, with no real things to hide behind, except if you were standing pressed closely against the wall that led away from the lighthouse. And the brightly-shining moon didn't help much, either. Would any of the police officers in there bother to take a look out of the window, he'd be spotted easily, despite the black top and trousers he was wearing.

He froze, though, when he caught sight of someone standing in front of him in the middle of the path. He easily recognized the person standing in front of him: Snake, his father's murderer. Both stood stock-still for a few moments, appraising each other.

"You have done well for yourself, Toichi." A shiver ran down Kaito's spine at being addressed as such again.

"And now, hand over the jewel!" The killer demanded of him, with one hand outstretched invitingly towards him. Kid was sure there was some kind of gun in his other hand that was concealed behind the black cloth his adversary was wearing. The boy-turned-phantom-thief let a smile graze his mouth. He held his hands out in front of him, juggling the precious stone around and further taunting his enemy.

"You _do_ realize the ease with which the police could bear down on the two of us, don't you?" Kid couldn't help but throw in. "Besides, this isn't the gem you're looking for, either. What use would it be for me to hand this little sparkling beauty over to you?" It wasn't what he'd been looking for, as well, but then again, he'd rather give it to the police than to Snake. And it was fun, getting on his opponent's nerves and seeing him visibly pull himself together before speaking. He had to hand it to Snake, though; the man had a particularly long fuse regarding him.

"Your life expectancy is getting shorter and shorter, Toichi. Or should I say the life expectancy of your family members? I know your name, Kuroba Toichi. Don't you forget that! I only spare your life so you can look for Pandora for us. But your time's running out soon! Don't waste it!" Having spoken those barely-reassuring words, he quickly moved his other arm and shot two bullets at the thief.

Fortunately, they missed as Kaito ducked behind the opening in the wall. The missing light and the black clothes made it difficult for Snake to see his target, much less shoot someone successfully. When Kaito chanced a glance back at the spot Snake had been standing at, the older man had disappeared.

The teenager pulled his black clothes closer around his face and waited for about two minutes more before he risked going down the path. He didn't know where Snake had disappeared to, but he strongly suspected that the trigger-happy man-in-black had gone down the normal pathway, there being pretty much only one way to go if you weren't the adventurous sort. Naturally, the thief-magician was of that sort. However, he didn't want to risk getting shot at once more, or worse: injured, while going down _his_ way to the small, hidden bay.

But the things Snake had said… had made him pause. They _were_ true, after all. Snake did know his name. And that was one truth that – all of a sudden – started bothering the young man greatly. It should have been obvious to him from their very first meeting. Snake knew his father's name. If that had happened by will, chance, or force, had nothing to do with the fact that the previous Kaitô Kid's son now had to live with the consequences. Snake knew where to find Kaitô Kid's family.

And he had the power to seriously threaten the thief with that small detail and corner him. If Snake was aware of it or not, just by knowing his father's name, he had something to hold above Kaito's head should he ever need to. He could make Kaito do what he wanted – and the thief would be at his mercy completely, with only one move. That was a situation that required some careful planning to avoid.

Kaito didn't follow the obvious pathway, but – after walking along that one for about five minutes, changed to a different way of getting down towards the sea. He'd stashed his lifeboat in a small lagoon just beneath the rock that the lighthouse was standing on. It couldn't be seen from the sea or from the lighthouse, and couldn't be found unless you knew where to find it.

The teenager supposed he was fortunate that his father's assistant had known about it. Having arrived at the lagoon after about an hour of hiking along a seemingly arbitrary route, the thief finally made his way towards the spot where he'd put the small lifeboat. Deep in thought, Kaito mechanically put away his white tuxedo and the hat that he'd stuffed into his messenger bag and opened the emergency lifeboat. The weather was just fine for getting the boat out of the bay and back to the grand beach closer to the town.

Slowly he submerged himself into the water until it reached above his knees. It was a good thing that he'd researched the richness of fish in that area and come up with the comforting words "almost zero". Apparently those fish that lived in that little bay were too shy to even dare swim close enough to the shore to bother humans. That was one good thing for him.

With these thoughts in mind and having reached a sufficient level of water depth, he got into the boat and started paddling. Once he was satisfied with how far he'd come, he looked back towards the lighthouse. Smiling lightly, he regarded the scene safely from the distance. It seemed that the policemen still hadn't been able to completely clear out the pink smoke and were getting frantic trying to find him and the jewel.

Smirking at the mayhem he'd been able to cause, he pulled the paddles towards him and started rowing alongside the cliff. The light current helped greatly in that venture. The plotting and planning could come later; for now he had to concentrate on steering the small boat safely back towards solid ground.

The waxing moon was his only companion and appeared to be cheering him on in this endeavor.

_TeenageDreamsInATeenageCircus_

A few hours later found the young thief finally reaching his house. Of course he'd had problems folding the lifeboat. Naturally, Jii had waited with the car at the place which had been the farthest away from his landing point at the beach. And he hadn't minded carrying the still-open lifeboat, the messenger bag with the jewel in it, and the paddles back to the car _at all_, trying with all his might not to look too conspicuous and out-of place on the otherwise absolutely deserted beach.

All in all, it had ended up in a rather frustrating walk, which had not helped dispel his exhaustion at all. Weary and strung-out, he had then proceeded to lean back in his car seat and try to relax while he had let Jii drive them back home. The land of nod had claimed him not long after.

Having arrived at his final destination for that day, he left the things in the car with Jii – the old man had offered to get everything back to him the day after which he'd more than gratefully accepted – and went to the door. Getting the keys out he barely had the strength to turn the knob. Bleary-eyed he entered the utterly silent house. He felt so exhausted that all he wanted to do was fall into bed.

Slowly he dragged himself into the warm, welcoming kitchen. The light was on – his mother had probably forgotten to switch it off the evening before. He hadn't eaten anything since lunch, and his stomach strongly rebelled against the thought of going to bed without food, despite it being after two o'clock in the morning already. He was on the verge of getting milk out of the fridge, he had the fridge wide open and a hand already stuck into the cold abyss of the food-collector, when he chanced a curious glance into the general direction of the living room (_She left the light there on, as well? That was strange._) and saw it. He promptly froze.

There was a foot lying in the entrance of the living room. Even before he had gotten his brain to start working again, his feet had brought him over to the threshold of the living room door where he got his second shock of that day. For lying there, for all intents and purposes looking dead, was his mother.

_TeenageDreamsInATeenageCircus_

**AN**: TWO Kid Heists in ONE single chapter! Rejoice, dear readers, I think I can only _hope_ to manage that again…! (It only came about once I separated the whole story into chapters. Yes, this is my very first Nanowrimo-Novel!) And yes, I am evil. Cliffhangers ARE my forte; my friends have already established that. They are not all too happy about it, either. :_P oh well. Whatever.

**THE NEXT CHAPTER WILL BE POSTED ON THE 23.3.2012!**

I'm sorry for making you wait that long, but editing IS taking its merry time and I still need to finish writing the bloody story, too… even though I've successfully done Nanowrimo with it. So you can at least expect the story to be 50 k long. That's _something_, right?

Btw: apple juice plus water equals beer-like appearance. Kaito isn't off age yet, thus he wants to (even if only shortly) fool the older man a bit.


	2. Running Around Like A Clown On Purpose

_Running Around Like a Clown on Purpose_

**Disclaimer**: Don't own either DC or MK!

**AN**: YESSSSS! Finished correcting the chapter! I'm sorry for the second alert, and I hope you like it! Have fun!

Moreover: I know you must be annoyed at hearing that already, but: Reviews, please?

*ducks head and scurries off*

__

**Kuroba Kaito POV**

He was waiting in the corridor leading to the master bedroom. In fact, he was pacing. He'd managed to find himself some scraps to eat already half an hour ago. Restlessly he threw a look in the direction of the door to his parents' bedroom every few seconds. He couldn't stand waiting or being kept in the dark about something for too long. It wasn't even that the doctor was keeping him in the dark intentionally; he'd simply not finished examining his mother yet and thus couldn't tell him anything yet about the shape she was in.

It was three am by the time the doctor _finally_ exited the room. Kaito'd let himself slide to the ground along a wall so he leaned against it in a crouched position, but sat up immediately upon hearing the door close behind the doctor. The older man let his gaze rest on the younger one for a few moments before signing him to enter the living room with him. The teenager stood up and followed the man.

Fortunately for him the family physician had been available at this time of night. Kaito didn't know what he'd have done without him. He hadn't been thinking straight and dialed the first number that he thought could help – that being the number of the family doctor that had told his mother and him to call him up in case of an emergency just shy of ten days prior to this.

The physician gave him a short rundown of his mother's state. She'd apparently overworked herself. Stress had brought her body to the point where it couldn't deal with it anymore and shut down. That was the major reason for her fainting according to the doctor. He told Kaito to let her take it slowly and to be careful – these kinds of things shouldn't be underestimated!

The doctor gave him a prescription for calming pills to give to her and told Kaito he'd inform her working place of her illness and tell them to release her from work for the next two weeks. After seeing the doctor out, he put the alarm clock to seven, switched off the light and fell into bed himself.

__

The morning came. And went. Only for Kaito to crawl on all fours back into bed again after having excused himself from school in his mother's voice. He just was way too exhausted to try and pay attention to a teacher rambling on about things that he knew by heart already, to attempt not to tip off the pretentious detective and to avoid that witch-turned-classmate.

And that didn't even account for the mop chases Aoko would drag him into the moment he'd step over the classroom's threshold. Well, it wasn't as if he'd started _every_ mop chase there was. One had to give credit where credit was due and all that. The Nakamoris – both generations – were a force to be reckoned with after all.

Sometime that morning Jii had come over. He'd brought the lifeboat (in a portable size) – Kaito'd thrown the boat an evil look as soon as he'd been aware enough to notice it – and the clothes, too. His father's assistant was now in the kitchen, trying to transform some of the leftovers into something presentable (and edible) and Kaito in the secret room haphazardly throwing things into the big cardboard box that Jii had brought the things in. Jii was so engrossed in his appointed job as chef that he didn't even notice Kaito's mother, Kuroba Chikage, enter the kitchen until he looked up from the frying pan to look for the salt.

"You're awake already? Good morning! How are you feeling, Kuroba-san?"

"I'm alright, I guess. Do you happen to know where my wayward son has disappeared off to?"

"I'm here." Kaito chose that moment to come back into the kitchen. A short awkward pause followed. "Can I help you? Would you like to sit down?" he took a cushion that had made its way from the living room into the kitchen and offered it to the older woman. She declined the offer and moved to the living room entrance. "Let's have this discussion in here, shall we?" she said, throwing a glance back at the two men.

Kaito followed, Jii still being busy cooking. As he entered the room, his mother had already sat down on one of the couches. He took a seat in the settee close to the false open chimney, at her right hand side, and waited for her to start up the conversation. She made herself comfortable. Kaito could see her fever had gone down a bit, her skin color was healthier and her overall appearance was – though still a bit drawn – much, much better than the day before.

"I'm sorry to have worried you. I didn't want for that to happen…" his mother began. Kaito didn't know what to say at first. She apologized for fainting? "It's ok. You shouldn't stress yourself this much. You have two jobs, right? You should just quit one… we're getting on well enough as it is."

Chikage started shaking her head. "It's not just that. I haven't been quite honest with you, Kaito-kun." Somehow he dreaded what came next, "I haven't only worked at two jobs. In fact, I've taken up a third just shy of four months ago."

"WHAT?" he exploded, being very enraged at hearing this tidbit of information and her overall carelessness "What did you do that for?" He couldn't sit still anymore and started pacing in front of the open chimney. "I can't think of any reason why you'd do that! You shouldn't overdo it like that for no good reason, do you understand that? It's bad to let yourself go like that!

Besides, we've still got dad's inheritance… it should be enough to pay the rent and food for the two of us for a long time still! Just why are you working so much?" having reached the end of his little tirade, he frowned in worry.

With a sigh she directed her eyes to the table standing in the middle of the room. "Well, you see…" she began, but couldn't seem to find the words to go on. "I… in fact…. The reason for that…." With a dejected sigh, she shook her head again. "I know."

Nothing could have stopped the teenager in his tracks quicker than that. "What… _what_ do you know?" With his eyes he bore a hole into her head. His whole being screamed that she shouldn't answer with what he suspected she would say… and in his head he translated the question: "_How much_ do you know?"

He'd known that she at least suspected something. All the nights that he wasn't in the house only to come back in the mornings? She ought to at least have suspicions about who he was masquerading as. Just how much she knew was much more important. Did she know about Pandora? About Snake?

"I know about you being Kaitô Kid. That is why I wanted to work so hard." His brain grounded to a stop. What was that all about? What did him being Kaitô Kid have in common with her working so hard? In any case, those two sentences seemed to have broken a dam. The story spilled from her lips like water came out of a fountain.

"I knew your father, Kaito. And I knew about his nighttime occupation far more than you could ever guess at. There were no secrets in this marriage. I am glad for that. I know he was looking for something, even though he never told me what it was. I didn't ask. If he had wanted me to know, he'd have told me."

She looked at him imploringly, going on "But he was a good man. I didn't believe one minute that what he did as a Kaitô could be anything but his way of dealing with something big. He tried to do good things. So I wanted to help. When I asked him how I could contribute, he gave me the cold shoulder, though."

"Did he think you were going to go out as Phantom Lady again or some such nonsense?" Kaito butted in. There was a strange glint in her eyes at that comment, but otherwise she ignored it. Kaito was absolutely absorbed in the story by then. That was a trait he'd carried over from his childhood: this strange awareness and focus children had when confronted with a story, puzzle or anything new. It was refreshing, if a little bit disturbing to watch.

"So I had to find something of my own. I wanted to help him. How could I help him without getting too involved whatever he didn't want me involved in? One of the ideas I had was that I could contribute small amounts of money, at the very least. I did that. I set up a second account for him that he could use as Kaitô Kid and deposited small amounts of money into it every other week or so." Kaito's eyebrows rose.

That was news. He hadn't known that _she_ was the main donator to that account. That person had always been working from the shadows and didn't want to be known. He hadn't dug any further yet, because, well; you just didn't look a gift horse in the mouth, did you?

"He didn't say anything against it, so I kept doing that. I gave him the password and the necessary documents so he was all set.

Sometime after I did that, he started regularly depositing money from his own salary into that account, too. It was just small amounts, but they accumulated to quite a sum. He used it for his nightly adventures.

And right there lays the problem now."

"I'm not earning money. And I'm too young to do so for at least a year yet," Kaito followed his mother's line of thoughts.

"Correct. With your father, depleting the amount of money was no problem: he'd just put some money into it himself again, as soon as possible. But I think I am right in the assumption that you're using the very same account for your own nightly adventures." A nod was all that was needed for confirmation.

"I've tried to add to it by taking the odd job here and there, but my main job is needed for our living expenses. And now I've apparently overdone it…"

"Don't worry, mum! I'll just try to find myself a part-time job that agrees with my school schedule. It won't be a problem! Jii-chan will help! Alright, Jii-chan?" That last part was addressed towards the door, where the elderly man was patiently waiting with the cutlery and three plates in his hands. He nodded. "Of course I'll help the young master find something. I'm also all the time adding some more of my own money to the account, so it should be alright."

"See, it's gonna be alright! You just lie back and let us men do the work from now on, ok?" With a smile Kaito went to help Jii set the table. They ate with quiet chatter and the radio going in the background. Soon after the woman retired to her bedroom, warning the two – this warning being mostly directed at her son – that she'd like to see the house still standing the next time she came out of her room again.

Kaito and Jii put away the plates and then Jii bade Kaito goodbye. He wanted to get the snooker hall ready for his customers and had a few errands to run before that. The old man promised Kaito to be on the lookout for any job opportunities. Kaito, in the meanwhile, decided to call Aoko and ask her about that day's school time and if there was anything important he'd missed out on. After that, he decided, he'd try to get a head start at trying to beat Snake at his own game.

__

Six hours later found the young thief in the secret room of his father's slowly getting more and more frustrated while working through the things his predecessor had left behind.

"Enough's enough! I'm fed up with it! No, I'm way beyond being fed up with it! I'm sick of this!" he told himself. "I need to find it! Now, where would I be if I was a book full of contacts in the seedy underworld, for the black market, the police and other important organizations that phantom thieves can't help but keep track of at all times?"

And he just _knew_ that his father had been in possession of such a book, Jii had mentioned something the like more times than he could count. The old man however hadn't been able to remember just where he'd seen it last. That hadn't helped much.

"_Underworld_… underneath? No, it can't be that easy, can it?"

While saying this he kneeled down and reached for one floorboard. At the last moment, shortly before his hand reached it, he pulled it into a fist and knocked lightly onto it. He then proceeded to do the same to every floorboard that was visible to him. The room certainly did not make this easy for him.

Things were haphazardly strewn around; Kid-costumes were hanging on the doors of the cupboards, a dove, christened "Hope," who had followed him in the last time he'd entered the room, perched precariously on a pile consisting of various books, magical instruments and requisites. And then there still was that car and all the piles of weird things around it…

Trying not to set anything off was a fruitless task as well, seeing as the paint-bombs, flash bombs and any others were more or less designed to appear as something else entirely. And that just didn't help the situation any, either! Fortunately he was quite careful and meticulous in his search. He had learned his lesson after the first smoke bomb had gone off right in his face after accidentally falling of a shelf that he'd apparently shaken a little too much.

It was definitely not easy to find things in that room. Having already filled up one cardboard box with items that were easy to reach and move – and which didn't go off the moment you touched them –, he had no idea where to put _that_ yet. It shouldn't be as difficult to find someplace where he could store it, though, as trying to find that blasted book proved to be.

No floorboard was loose. He continued his search by diving into the next small hill-like pile of things on the left side of the secret entrance.

__

Three hours later still found him going through the room's contents. Then he really had enough. He stood up from his crouched position and stretched like a cat, hearing several bones in his body pop back into place. He sat down on the next item-free chair and reflected. He was absolutely and unwaveringly sure that his father had actually compiled a contact-book, as it was also referenced more than twice in the book with all the gems in it that his father had stolen, on top of having Jii know about it.

But where did he hide it? Did he even hide it on purpose? Usually, his father had been very meticulous with everything he'd done. Once at home, however, a trail of things followed in his wake, no matter what his mother did or said to make him stop that habit from developing any further.

So, the one-million-dollar-question still remained: where had his father put that book? His best guess was the secret room, seeing as it already contained so much evidence against Kaitô Kid that one or two incriminating items more would not matter much. But it would have been infinitely easier if it had been lying in plain sight, just the same. Not that finding the gem book had been anything less of a coincidence for the world-famous phantom thief's successor.

Frowning in thought, he got up again, just to have his foot stand on some kind of book the moment he took his third step in the direction of the exit in order get out of the room with the intention of grabbing himself a glass of water in the kitchen and brainstorming where it could be outside of the room.

Disbelievingly, he took his foot off of it and grabbed the book. That book he was holding just then was the exact book he'd been chasing after for more than five hours! "Annoying little bugger," Kaito muttered with affection in his voice. It was so typical. His dad always had kept his stage, his preparation room and the requisites needed meticulously clean – ridiculously so. That was also the reason why at first no one had wanted to believe he'd caused the accident on stage by not tending to the instruments enough.

Kuroba Toichi had been very peculiar in that aspect. Because the moment he stepped into any room that he could let himself be "himself" in, a trail of haphazardly strewn-around things had followed in his wake. So it came to be – simply put – that chaos reigned supreme in Kaitô Kid's storeroom.

"And I bet he found everything right when he needed it too," Kaito added out loud, lost in a nostalgic memory for a moment. Then he shook it off and returned to the present.

There was much to plan for, after all.

__

Two days passed after the incident with his mother in which nothing more exciting happened than a healthy color slowly returning to the cheeks of the late Kuroba's wife and Kaito being chased by Aoko more than the usual five times on Wednesday – to make up for the day before that he'd missed out on.

The third day was one which brought good news. Jii had apparently found a job for him that Friday. His mother had quit two of the three jobs that she'd been doing and was getting healthier and healthier by the day. The doctor had come again and told her to be careful for about a week more – after which she could go back to work again. It had been met with a shout of joy that could rival the sports commentator's ecstatic exclamations at the end of a game in loudness.

But her quitting the other two jobs had – as predicted – brought the problem with it that Kaitô Kid would have to make do without the anonymous donor. So Kaito had been – with Jii's help – looking for a job. Jii at first offered him to do a show as magician at his place. That way Kaito wouldn't have to pay for the rent of the place and he'd get to finally practice his magic in front of other people.

Kaito had had fun preparing everything. The trouble was that his first two shows (one on Wednesday and one on Thursday) had ended quite miserably. Some guests hadn't liked having their concentration during the billiard games broken by his magic tricks and had started making problems during the second try. Thus they'd had to look for something else.

And that day Jii had apparently found something new for him! "It's at a post office not too far from here. You'll have to get up at four, though." he told him. Kaito'd told the older man that that shouldn't be a problem, seeing as his other job was during the night, too. Jii left him the number of the post office and told him to go there with his Curriculum Vitae and ask for a job interview.

So he went there that very same day. It turned out that the manager of the small post office had been quite beside himself: a student help had failed to turn up that day and they'd had to improvise a lot. They were desperately trying to find someone who could step in at such short notice.

Of course Kaito could start that following Monday as it wasn't too much of a bother. "No, that is quite perfect. Thank you." – with these words Kaito had excused himself and happily trudged home. Now he'd only have to find a way to hide it from the Nakamoris and the school, seeing as there were rules in place to prohibit students from going to work while continuing their education.

__

That evening, he had gone outside to have a closer look at the gem he'd stolen at his latest heist. Clear and broken into many different rays that all fled into different ways, the light of the moon reflected off of it. It wasn't Pandora, the gem he'd been looking for, just as he'd thought. But he had wanted to check, just in case. Hope died last, right? So he'd hoped, fervently hoped for his chase to finally be over already. Unfortunately, that hope had apparently been slightly misplaced.

Weary, he let a dejected sigh escape. Was it even worth it? How often had he already pondered that question? It had wandered through his mind too many times to count, almost seemed to haunt him with its sober and scathing clarity. And then there were times when reality crashed into his awareness as though he was tasting it for the first time. Victory really was only one gem away, wasn't it? And what if that gem didn't exist in the first place?

All the chases he'd had with the police, all the dodging bullets and snipers that he'd been doing, all the pre-heist preparations he'd watched, been part of and deliberately helped with – it all would have been for naught. It would have been for nothing, literally, if that reality turned out to be true. All his stealing, all his preparing and escaping. All for nothing.

NO. Kaito shook his head determinedly. Never was he allowed to think that way. Did he dare to get lost in that kind of thinking, he knew he wouldn't be able to reemerge. The teenager knew what was at stake. Nothing but desperation lay in that direction. He'd lose himself and then control over what was going on. That couldn't happen, no matter what.

He steered his ship of thoughts firmly onto the other route facing upwards. The thief wouldn't lose. Neither himself, nor control over what he was doing, and much less would he lose this fight. Resolutely he faced toward the moon again, standing by his actions.

Come what may, he would follow up on what he had set out to do once he'd put on his father's suit.

__

He'd made a remarkably huge dent in the piles of things and assembled gadgets that were stashed in the secret room by the night of the fourth day. He'd continuously gotten everything into cardboard boxes – sorted, of course, into different boxes according to the items' functions (or the apparent lack thereof), because he just couldn't find anything in a workplace that was as unruly as that room had been. One obvious change was the lack of piles around the car. Those had been the first to go.

Quite a few items had defended themselves with the deliberate use of smoke bombs or a pile of things landing on top of Kaito's head just at the right time. He'd grumbled a lot about those… especially the three weird, metallic robots with bold letters in neon print on them: P3, P2 and K were displayed proudly on their chests. They apparently refused his attempts at removal: they absolutely Did. Not. Want to leave their places and had viciously attacked him with a mouse, a flash bomb, a box full of paint and a stack of paper falling down on him – not necessarily in that order. Later he'd found out that they had been screwed on there, even. All three of them had been shoved into one brown cardboard box as soon as he'd managed to unscrew them.

There was even a racing game with about ten small cars in there – Kaito had stumbled over them (literally) when he'd been rearranging the shelf that hung a little bit over the car. He'd of course had his left foot get caught on one of them and go _whoooosh!_ – which had ended with him falling right onto his butt.

All in all, it seemed as though the Kaitô Kid's hideout had a life of its own.

Thus, he'd separated the items according to their level of irritating-ness, too: the things that resisted his attempts at removal the most got one big brown cardboard box all to themselves. And it did take a lot to earn that title, in the first place.

There were things there that surprised Kaito a lot, too. For example a stuffy … something … resting on top of a shelf that Kaito had mistaken for a big hairy monster when it had come raining down on him after he'd accidentally shaken one cupboard a tad too much while trying to balance three books, two smoke bombs (he just _knew_ those two candles on that candle stick were actually disguised smoke bombs!) and a chair in his hands. He'd almost had a heart attack!

Fortunately the bombs didn't go off. But he'd then had to wonder about that fluffy… something. Just what was his father thinking putting _that_ into the Kaitô Kid's secret room? Was it put there for purposes of decoration? He looked at it a bit cross-eyed. If you closed one eye and looked at it from that one side it didn't look too… deranged. There was no better word for it. It was promptly stuffed into the box with the items "sans apparent use other than putting it on top of a shelf somewhere".

But he'd had the time of his life sorting the things in Kid's secret room, as well. More times than he cared to count he'd found an item with which he'd tinkered and played around for more than just ten minutes trying to find out its use. To him, it was fascinating. It was an adventure!

It was almost like being back to being a kid again, finding a puzzle and trying to solve it. He had that much in common with the detectives that were after his hide, at least. He loved it, loved it, loved it!

By the time that he had to leave for his job – he had slept the morning away the day before in anticipation of spending a long night in the secret room organizing stuff – he'd managed to go through one third of the room's piles.

It was going well, he thought. And it was all in time, too. After all, he planned to be done with the room by the next weekend. It would help him tremendously if he'd have everything sorted – more or less, at least. As Kaitô Kid it would take him a shorter time looking for stuff. And as Kaito he finally could breathe in without having to care about knocking anything over and/or setting anything off by accident.

__

"Kaitô Kid, having trouble financing his exploits?" he huffed to himself in Hakuba's voice on his way to the post office, "I can see the headlines right now!" Swinging his bag over his other shoulder, he answered himself in his own voice,"Yeah, right. You know just how unbelievable that sounds, don't you?" He shook his head.

"Is there anybody needing a Kaitô Kid for any repair work? Anybody needing a handy white suit with extra integrated gadgets and man? I can do guard duties, as well, and come with the most extensive derogatory vocabulary built in, too!" he started saying in Nakamori-keibu's voice, just for fun.

"Available only at four o'clock in the morning, on his way to the post office!" with a wink and a suggestive kissing motion he closed his advertisement by using Aoko's voice.

The streets were quite deserted at four thirty in the morning. Even in his younger days, he'd always loved being up this late. To share the moment with no one else, to have it to yourself for at least those few hours of the morning. That was what made it special, he thought. It was perfect. He'd have to walk for only five minutes more, two more turns, and then his destination would appear in front of him.

"Kaitô Kid for rent. Come asking here." he murmured in his own voice as the small outline of the post office was coming closer. Four o'clock in the morning was making him silly, apparently.

As he entered the building through the backdoor – just as the older man had told him to – he immediately happened upon his future working place. The old man came to him and jovially thumped him on the back.

"Thank you for jumping to our rescue this soon, Kaito-kun! You're a lifesaver. See, this is where you'll be working. Your work involves sorting the letters and putting them into the correct grids. These are your co-workers."

He pointed towards a young man and a lady, presumably both students. No one else got up that early and managed to look as though they've come back from a party just an hour ago. The hickey on the lady's neck didn't disprove this theory.

"It's a tad early, but we have a coffee machine. Feel free to use it." He was shown the way to the coffee machine – not that he'd need it much; he had been awake for most of the night already, after all, and he wasn't much of a coffee drinker anyways. Give him hot chocolate any day!

After having gotten himself one cup of coffee with milk and a quite liberal amount of sugar added in, he made his way to the staples of newspapers that he'd sort into the grids of the shelves in front and to both sides of him. There were numbers on the grids. The newspaper staples had numbers as well. Following those numbers he was to arrange the newspapers in the grids.

It sounded far more complicated than it was. But it was just the right thing to do at four thirty in the morning. It didn't require him to do much and was a rather mind-numbing activity. It was perfect to convince his brain to stop working right before school.

Slowly he settled into some kind of routine. He'd get up at three, get into the secret room and throw various things into huge cardboard boxes that he'd gotten from Jii, walk to the post office, leave for Aoko's house at eight and be at school at nine.

Once there, he would avoid Koizumi as best as he could, annoy Hakuba while still trying to get Aoko as mad as he can, successfully escape her mop while still being careful to be able to make up with her afterwards. After school he'd go back to his house, do the homework, eat and sleep. Only to get up at about three and start all over again.

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**AN**: Having a routine established, we ought to break it, right? That comes to pass in the next chapter, so tune in again once I get around to posting that!

**THE NEXT CHAPTER WILL BE OUT ON THE 08.04.2012!**

Hello there! Here are the outtakes: things that my beta (and common sense/a glance at the canon happenings) convinced me to take out of the chapter to make it more… applicable. Have fun!

_But the aroma of coffee in the morning definitely was refreshing._

_After having gotten himself one heavenly cup of coffee he made his way over to the grids._

Right. I believe anyone who has had a look at the manga and/or anime version of Kaito can agree that Kaito is not much of a coffee drinker at all. *rubs neck* I guess I must have gotten a little bit of myself into this… Thus: the changed version.

Here's another scene which I had to cut out (my beta was right, it does kind of distract from the actual scene a bit…); seeing as I didn't simply want to delete it (it IS true, after all), I just put it down here:

_It was a stupid law, Kaito thought privately, but it was in place so the school wouldn't earn itself a bad reputation. And, so the students could worry about their classes only. They were right, he supposed, in that quite a few of his classmates would most probably search for a rather badly-reputed job were they allowed to, but he himself thought it was simply dumb to punish the whole student body like this. The more responsible students couldn't even gather any jobs and experiences they could put on their Curricula Vitae later on!_


	3. Who Gives A Damn

_Who Gives A Damn About The Family You Come From?_

**Disclaimer**: Don't own either DC or MK! Now that we've got that out of the way: On with the story!

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On the ninth day following the incident – after school had let out and he'd accompanied Aoko to her house first – just as Kaito arrived at the gate leading to his own home, he noticed something weird. A rectangular something was perched on the neighbor's fence, pointing at their house. It was hidden behind some green leaves but still quite noticeable if one knew the garden and the house like the back of one's hand.

The second camera was less striking to his eyes, but he still noticed it while carrying out the garbage that afternoon. Kaito made sure there weren't any other cameras or suspicious objects anywhere before carrying the big cardboard boxes in through the back. Jii had brought them over every second day at his request. He didn't tell his mother about the surveillance, though he had the feeling that she already knew anyways.

When on the tenth day after his mother's breakdown he noticed a suspicious person observing their house he felt he had to do something about it. By then he'd only gone through the contact book to check what kinds of addresses his father had gathered and to plot what he could do with them. Now he felt he'd need to take the game one step further and get active.

That evening he laid out the plan he'd thought up in front of him in the secret room and – via many redirections that, among others, involved the university server of Tôdai-University – Kaito called the contact in the FBI that his dad had managed to get a hold of years ago in the hopes that they were still there.

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**Nakamori Aoko POV**

Nakamori Aoko was nervous. She wasn't the best when it came to emotions, she knew. She might be able to recognize them, but to actually deal with other people who were experiencing strong emotions was asking too much of her. She thought she'd inherited that from her father. When emotions were involved both of them reacted in a rather gruff manner. Both of them didn't really know how to cope with a situation containing emotional expression.

That was also the reason why Keiko – her best friend – always told her she was too naïve when it came to that. But that was just who she was. It was also why she liked having Kaito around. He knew how to handle emotional breakdowns and the like and usually he'd be the one leading her on whenever such episodes happened. But she wasn't so sure if he could help her in the situation she found herself in. Because he was actually the one involved this time.

Of course his childhood friend had heard about his mother's breakdown. She'd immediately offered to help them and about a week after that offer it became more and more natural for her to be in the house in the afternoons. It was not as though she had never been invited over before, but then it was only every other day that she'd come to the Kuroba's house.

It was not particularly straining for her to offer to help with chores and cooking – she didn't have to go far and was the one doing those things at her own house anyways. They did live in neighboring houses, after all. Besides, her father was home less and less these days. The clean-up after a Kid heist always was much more annoying than the preparations that came before. Thus it was quite easy for her to make a decision.

So it came that she was practically completely living in the Kuroba household about two to three weeks after Chikage was allowed to work again until such a time that her father was less occupied. And Kaito's jobs hadn't gone as unnoticed as he'd have liked them to be.

About two weeks into that routine she had noticed something off with him. He was rarely at home in the afternoons and when he came home he was so exhausted it took a blind man not to see that he'd been up to something taxing and exhausting. Aoko didn't know what could do that to him, though.

She got extremely curious when he started falling into bed shortly after coming home late at night and forgetting to do the homework or even just to eat something. She knew her friend. And if the younger Nakamori knew one thing about her childhood friend then it was that he was very careful about taking care of himself. Especially after that bean-fiasco years ago.

That in particular was the reason why she had decided to spy on her best friend. Unfortunately for her, he was slippery like an eel. She couldn't seem to follow him anywhere without losing sight of him after a few blocks. It was rather annoying, really.

When she had had enough, Aoko had managed to pull Hakuba into joining her – though she had the sneaking suspicion that he only tagged along because of some half-brained Kaitô-Kid-scheme that he'd concocted. The brown-haired girl still couldn't understand why he believed that Kaito was Kid. Did he honestly think that Kid would openly put on display his skills as a magician in real life like that? It would be immensely stupid of the thief to do so.

Everybody would immediately suspect Kaito of being Kid if that was the case – like they were doing at the moment anyways. It would be so much more dangerous if that were the case. She chanced a glance back at their quarry. It would be so much more complicated, too.

She shook her head. Aoko didn't even want to go there. That day held the perfect chance for finding out where Kaito went off to in the afternoons: Chikage had gone out shopping, and the teenager had time on her hands before Aoko would have to show up at the Kuroba's house in order not to worry Kaito's mother.

It was so exciting! Aoko could barely remember the last time she'd been spying on someone like that. Back then it had been Kaito who'd dragged her with him. Hakuba hushed her as she let a giggle escape her mouth. They were crouched behind a small transporter – Kaito had walked into a Conbini, so they got a short break.

The blonde detective threw her a glance before looking back towards the entrance of the Conbini to check whether their victim had emerged yet. He hadn't. Still looking at the entrance, he whispered back at her, "Think he took the back entrance?" Turning to the blond with a shocked look, she stared at the detective incredulously. Had he given them the slip yet again? That just couldn't be!

__

**Kuroba Kaito POV**

By the time his mother was allowed to work again on the Monday two weeks after her breakdown, Kaito had started his third job. The post job had been far too monotonous for him. Despite him giving it his everything and honestly trying, he'd fallen asleep thrice – twice he had been able to cover it up, but the third time the manager had noticed, unfortunately. Kaito had been taken aside and given a stern talking-to.

Desperately he'd then tried everything to stay awake: showing off some magic tricks every twenty minutes, gotten more coffee, taken a run around the building before starting to work, heck, he'd even tried to memorize the grids. It had worked. He now knew exactly which grid had which number. But that had been everything he had gained.

His co-workers had delighted in watching him perform the various magic tricks, but otherwise nothing had quite worked to keep _him_ awake. And the trick gadgets had a knack for disappearing under the various letters that he'd had to sort by then… after a little consideration he'd had to give that up, too. He just didn't care to look for his requisites after every single trick he performed at five o'clock in the morning.

So it came that the Monday just a week after he'd started, he'd had to quit the job lest he'd be fired. The job search was on, yet again. Jii had helped him greatly in that area. The old owner of the snooker hall had made a lot of friends in his career and thus had been able to quickly find another job Kaito could try out. This next one was at a restoration company in Suginami. It sounded far away already.

And that just proved to be the next hurdle for Kaito. It took him more than an hour of walking to get there – the bus apparently took long detours that would take him about an hour to get to the place as well, so he chose to walk. It was ridiculous. About five days into the job – it was the time that he was on approbation– he was forced to quit it.

On the upside, though, he'd managed to finish sorting through the secret room. No more decorated piles and piles of gadgets, books and mysterious items alike the floor, no more adorned dust all surfaces available. Kaito was proud of himself. He'd managed to organize the room – it had taken him even less time than he'd prepared for at first!

Boxes now sat neatly in the shelves to the immediate right of the door, labeled and easy to reach. Books were sitting on the smaller rack on the right hand side, sorted by subject. The costumes – and anything pertaining to them – had been put away in the cupboard close to the rack. The car was clean and usable. He'd even checked on the oil level, the motor and put gas into it.

It was still white. He'd gotten an idea what his father had bought it for after thinking about his mother's favorite dream a bit. She'd often talked about how they'd go off with his dad one Sunday morning and they'd have a picnic on a clearing in the woods or something the like.

She'd always get that dreamy, far-away schoolgirl – look whenever she told him about that one. And her eyes would get glassy, up until his dad kissed her. That was the moment when Kaito'd always look away. Parents kissing. Eww.

He sighed. The past was the past and the present was the present.

There was simply nothing better to do than start with the present if you wanted to get things right, right?

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**Edogawa Conan POV**

The young boy-but-not-boy had dutifully gone to reserve the table for him and his minder, Mouri Ran. He'd been sent to do so by her, seeing as she wanted to get a good table and carrying both their trays wasn't much of a problem for her. She already knew what Conan liked, anyways.

Thus Conan waited for her, sitting on the bench of a window table that was located just a little bit to the right, farther to the end of the restaurant. He knew she wouldn't take long, and spent the time watching the cars pass by from out of the window. That was, he did that; up until he heard the people on the next table talking.

"… bombing that house is alright? I still think it would be better if we could tweak it so it really is an accident." The rough voice of someone in their thirties; or forties? In general the precise age of a person is hard to tell by hearing their voice alone; all you could do was put them into certain age groups like "teenager" or "old person". – this person's voice permeated the air close to his ears. It was quiet, secretive, as though the speaker had something to hide. Which he supposed he did. The boy sat up straighter and leaned closer to be able to hear what was being told.

"No, it's better if we don't leave anything to chance. That man's got too much luck, as it is. We don't need to risk him getting away by letting it depend on his fortune if he makes it or not. No, we're going to implement the bombs here and there and there. This way, he won't be able to escape." Who was not going to escape? Weren't they going to talk about their victims? He reflected that it might be stupid, to talk about one's victims in the middle of a restaurant, so he came to the conclusion that they might have written it down somewhere in front of them.

The speaker, meanwhile, was talking on, "As soon as he gets away from us next time, we're going to get him! He won't know what's coming to him."

He slowly slid to the side so that he could look a bit over the bench. What he saw made his blood run cold. For there in front of his very eyes was a replica of a house – with the address and a name neatly written besides it which he could barely decipher from his observation point – on the laptop screen of someone in a dark brown trench coat, who was wearing a fitting, old-fashioned hat, too, and sitting directly opposite of someone dressed up in the same outfit.

Quickly, he turned around again to face his own table, making sure to have covered it as "impatient child waiting for his Nee-chan and looking around anxiously in order to mayhap get a glimpse of her coming closer somewhere". They didn't necessarily have to be from the same Organization that he'd been chasing after for a year now – the clothes certainly tended to give the impression of someone different involved this time. Nevertheless, they were planning to bomb a "Kuroba, Toichi"'s house, which was in Ekoda. Frowning, the boy remembered something else that just brushed the edge of his mind upon hearing that district's name.

Was there something else that was happening or had happened there that he'd forgotten? No recent cases came to mind. Was there someone he knew that was from that district? Or was it something else altogether? The only thing he could tell for sure was that there was something that he kept not getting whenever he thought of that name.

Getting back to the present with a violent shake as he felt Ran place the trays with their food on the table and made sure his hands and elbows – with which he'd been supporting his head when he had been in "thinking mode" earlier – were out of the way. With a decidedly _accidental_ turn of his head he just wanted to make sure to pay closer attention to their –

He froze with a look like a deer caught in the headlights for a moment. Both of the men wearing black had vacated their seats, without alerting him to their departure at all. His eyes as wide as saucers, he immediately excused himself from Ran and ran in the direction of the door as fast as his little legs would carry him.

That couldn't be – they couldn't be – what the hell! It had only been one single moment in which he'd been reflecting about that stupid district! It hadn't been enough to be called "absent-minded", even! They shouldn't have been able to get away as fast as they had. What had happened? He stood there, outside, in front of the door to the self-service restaurant for a few more minutes, before slowly entering the place again.

Deliberately taking his time, he sat down in his previous seat again, letting everything that he'd heard and seen roll through his head like a kneading roller, flattening the information out and extracting the main points. He'd heard the men talk about bombing someone. He'd furtively seen the picture of a house – a family home, maybe? – and he'd been able to read the address. It was a "Kuroba Toichi's" house in Ekoda. And they'd bomb him when… he'd get away from them the next time? What in heaven's name was that supposed to mean?

His brows furrowed in confusion. Was their victim someone they were after and who had escaped them a few times before already, then? But why wouldn't this sought-after person go to the police, if they had someone chasing after them and threatening their lives like this? His brain was mulling over the question a few times, all the time coming up blank; except for... It couldn't be, could it? Perhaps it was true, though, and the person these people were after was a criminal himself?

Well, the least he could do was make sure that Kuroba Toichi knew what was heading his way – whether he knew or didn't know what that last part of their conversation had meant. There was always the chance that it meant something to this Kuroba guy.

And something entirely else –not connected to the Ekoda-place-thing at all – kept gnawing at him all through his meal whenever he thought of this name: Kuroba Toichi. Just where had he heard it before? Shinichi was sure he'd come across it at least once before. Now, if he could just remember when or where he'd heard this before… he might just be able to draw the connection to the Ekoda-memory, too. Who was with him the last time he'd heard that name?

"…nan-kun! Conan-kun!" At hearing his fake name directed at him, he looked up, only to stare into the laughing face of one Ran Mouri.

"What are you thinking about? I tried getting your attention for the last few minutes already! Is it a new case?" At this, she leaned in closer, her voice taking on a quieter and lower timbre.

"No, I was just thinking about something Heiji-nii-chan told me this morning! It was about this person, a Kuroba Toichi. Do you know who that is?"

A bit nonplussed, she blinked before responding. "Yes, I know who that is."

Eagerly, the little detective leaned forward and his face brightened considerably, cutting her off before she could go on. She might be able to help him contact that guy! "So, who is it? Do you know where he lives? Can we go visit him after the meal?"

Her face fell when she heard his questions and the brunette looked troubled. However, Ran decided to be straightforward with this after a short moment of contemplation. After all, that little boy opposite her had seen a great many crime scenes and corpses already.

"I'm sorry. He's dead already, before you were born even. We won't be able to visit him."

His enthusiastic determination was dampened greatly, one could tell. Nevertheless, he plowed on. "Who was he? How do you know about him?"

"I know about him from Sonoko. He was a great magician, very much adored by his fans, apparently, and he died rather young. At least that's what I heard Sonoko mention when she told me about 'all the brilliant magicians in the Heisei era' that she assumes to have a connection to Kaitô Kid. It was a rather lengthy rant, seeing as she actually managed to do research on that. Can you believe it? Her in a library… and I think she might just go and visit all these magicians, only to see whether Kaitô Kid is one of them!"

Hiding a sympathetic grimace (_he could imagine Sonoko on a mission already. It wasn't anything he ever wanted to be part or a target of and he'd go to great lengths to avoid that._), the shrunken sleuth placed his head on his hand and asked, growing more and more listless by the moment, "You don't suppose his family is still around, do you? I could pay them a visit if that were the case."

Putting a finger to her chin in a thinking pose, Ran's eyes turned upwards and she slowly answered. "Yes, now that you mention it, I remember Sonoko did say he was married before he died. Maybe his wife is still around?"

Upon hearing that his Spirit lifted considerably and the detective-turned-boy decided that he'd pay her a visit the next morning, seeing as it was dark already and he didn't think that the men-in-black would pay the Kurobas a visit that very evening. Maybe she could tell him more about her late husband and about any men/bad organizations he might have made enemies of. And maybe she would also deign to tell him about just why the bad men thought her husband was still around and kicking when he was officially believed to be dead!

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**Kuroba Kaito POV**

That Saturday, Kaito had to get up really early in the morning to get to his next job's company's central building. However four o'clock – to Kaito at least – didn't count as "early", rather as it still being "in the middle of the night". It was almost as it was with his job at the post office. Only this time his job was far more interesting. He had to do physical work, mostly – help carry things from A to B, help lift stuff and paint walls. The teenager was the "man for everything", so to speak.

The only downside was, well, the kind of work. It didn't really help that he had school to consider, too. And _that_ was something he just _had_ to stay awake for, if he wanted to or not, if he had worked the day before or not. Teachers really were cruel sadists, in his most humble opinion. Yet his new job – the schedule of which was Saturday, Sunday and two afternoons every week – just left him too exhausted to care for school or anything else, really.

So, shortly after having quit this "man-for-everything"-job right after the second afternoon of work, Kaito had taken a well-earned day off of everything. It was a Wednesday (though it could have been Sunday, for all he cared; school wasn't as important as teachers liked to make their pupils believe, in his oh-so-very-humble opinion.), and it was also, purely by coincidence, the day that one Edogawa Conan had chosen to come out to Ekoda in order to warn the Kurobas of the apparently imminent danger.

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**Edogawa Conan POV**

The mini detective in the meantime had asked himself more than once already if he'd been dreaming the exchange the day before. It had been done and over with all too soon for his tastes. And then there was the fact that they'd been – quite obviously and without too much care about being overheard or noticed – exchanging the information with a blatant disregard towards their own surroundings.

Heck, he'd even managed to glimpse the picture and the address, for god's sake! If that wasn't enough of an argument for a set-up, he didn't know what was. But then there was the fact that this was a _real_ house to consider, as he was standing right before it just then. And it might just be a _real_ wife, too, who was in _**real**_ danger. With these thoughts in mind, the eighteen-turned-eight-year-old slowly made his way towards the front porch.

Conan let everything he saw sink in while doing so, from the pristine white walls that surrounded the house to the way the house seemed homely, but not overly so. This image was amplified once he'd been let inside by that nice lady who claimed to be called "Kuroba Chikage" after telling her he had a message for her. Having him sit down in a cozy couch in the living room, she'd then wandered off into the direction of the kitchen, which was adjacent to the room he was in now, presumably to fetch some cookies and a glass of water.

Introductions made, hunger and thirst dealt with… and when exactly did he intend to ask the nice, generous lady if her husband had dealt in shady and altogether criminal places? Quite obviously he wouldn't be doing so any time soon.

Really, he wasn't sure just why he insisted on distrusting them after all the rather positive first impressions he got from this place and woman. It was grating on his nerves, how he felt that there was one big puzzle part missing, just out of his reach and keeping him from seeing the whole picture clearly. It was as though a blur was cast over the middle of a painting, making it difficult to see anything but the very edges of the image and the whole frame. Oh, how he hated not knowing the essential pieces that made up a picture!

And he just knew it was a very vital piece, linking all the other pieces together and aligning them neatly once it was discovered. For that was its job, wasn't it? It was in the middle of everything, tying all the other things closer around it. In order to understand one single part a puzzle piece played in the whole image, you always had to know the adjoining pieces. It was the same for murders, too, wasn't it?

With a murder, you had the murderer as the essential piece – the base that everything else built up on: the murder weapon was only an item utilized to kill. It didn't have a special feature of its own, up until the moment when the murderer took hold of it. Having a motive didn't necessarily mean the person had a reason to kill – to actually do it, I mean. The person with the most convincing motive was more often the one person that was most affected by the murder rather than the murderer himself/herself.

Getting back to the matter at hand, however, he vowed to himself to be a little bit more trusting. _In dubio pro reo_, wasn't it? Conan would give her the benefit of the doubt.

When he looked up, though, he couldn't do anything else than freeze.

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**AN:** Todai University is nothing else than the University of Tokyo. Its full name has been shortened to Todai, seeing as the full version goes like this: Tokyo Daigakku (Tokyo University) in Japanese.

Cliffhangers galore! Cliffhangers rock! (I KNOW no one but me thinks that. Though… honestly? Even as a reader I feel that they're just cool!)

So…. anyone feeling up to reviewing this chapter after having read it? *dodges flying book heading her way*

*hides behind bookcase*

*looks out from behind bookcase*

Pretty please?

**THE NEXT CHAPTER WILL BE COMING ON THE 25.05.2012!**


	4. No Giving Up When You're Young

_No Giving Up When You're Young And You Want Some_

**Disclaimer**: Don't own either DC or MK! Enjoy the story!

_NoGivingUpWhenYou'reYoungAndYouWantSome_

**Kuroba Kaito POV**

He was walking down the street with Aoko when he first noticed the new – and rather suspicious – rectangle-shaped box. It was situated on the fence of the right-hand neighbor's house. Subtly he kept an eye on it while entering his own. In the house, he called out to his mother to inform her that he was home and made a beeline for the kitchen, leaving Aoko to pull off her shoes and put away her own things.

Kaito let his bag fall to the ground at the entrance of the kitchen and went over to the fridge. He opened it and pulled out some milk. Leaning against the fridge while drinking it, he had the perfect view over the neighbor's house, the window conveniently being right on the opposite side. Nothing seemed to be out of place. Not letting it unnerve him (too much), he went about his daily routine.

He successfully ignored the box for about a week and then he noticed the next one. It was sitting just on the end of the opposite neighbor house's rainwater gutter this time. The house was only a one-story house, which made it even more apparent. It was, however, pointed at the Kuroba house. Obviously, surveillance over their house was to be increased. He raised an eyebrow in askance. Why?

When he was going out that very evening for some late-night-shopping, he noticed a car which had not been there earlier that day. There were two people in the car. Hadn't he seen them just that day? He thought back. Yes, he'd seen both of them loitering about the area. They had behaved quite suspiciously, too – as much as to tip even the neighbor off that something wasn't right.

Was that Snake and his men? But why were they watching the Kuroba household now of all times? What the hell was going on? He pretended not to think anything of it and let life continue as though nothing was wrong. When he'd finally taken his day off, he suspected that the people observing the house would back off a bit, seeing as he was home – and going to stay there for the remainder of the day – and thusly rendering any more useful surveillance that day quite unnecessary. They hadn't though, which, in turn, made him curious.

When his mother had opened the door for some guest, Kaito had been tinkering with a small item of the pile containing objects with "no apparent use" from his father's secret room. The next Kid heist was in two days, so he had to prepare for it; he had decided to use some of his father's old things in this one, simply because the heist date – coincidentally – fell onto the day where his father had met his mother. He'd already sent out the heist note to Nakamori-keibu by way of his daughter. It struck him as a bit strange, though. His mother almost never received guests nowadays.

Nevertheless, he hadn't been bothered too much. The woman hadn't sounded scared, the intruder hadn't tripped up any of the traps he'd put into the living room yet and there was no one screaming outside. Life was good. Besides, he'd find out about this guest sooner or later, whenever he chose to descend the staircase and enter the living room. And as long as the visitor would stay put on that couch and didn't venture out to have a closer look at anything in the living room, they'd even be able to greet one another on the same eye-level, Kaito had thought.

That was before he'd known just who it was that fate had brought there, into that specific house that time. As it was, nothing could have prepared him for seeing the chibi-critic sitting on a sofa right in the middle of the living room in his house. Kaito froze. His status as a phantom thief and magician could go straight to hell, for all he cared in that particular moment, poker face be damned. There were situations in life that nobody and nothing at all could prepare a person for, no matter how hard they tried. This was one such moment.

_NoGivingUpWhenYou'reYoungAndYouWantSome_

**Edogawa Conan POV**

The young boy didn't know exactly how long he'd been locked in that weird staring contest with that… that… _person_ – **almost-twin** of his. And it didn't matter, truly.

The moment was broken when a slight clack was heard, accompanied by a flash. As though in trance, both boys turned to look at the source of the unexpected noise. In the doorway to the kitchen, perched on a bar stool and with an expression on her face as though she literally was the cat that got the cream, sat no other person than Chikage Kuroba. With a mischievous grin, she asked, "What? I just took a photo."

As if stating the obvious was the magic utterance that helped dispel the curse that both masterminds had been under in that instance, they blinked multiple times and slowly started to look back towards one another and to the woman who was most definitely enjoying this situation far too much.

But honestly, they just looked like fish out of water (not that she'd ever let her son hear her say that; he'd scurry away faster than she could look). It was the funniest expression she had seen on either of them in a long, long time. She'd have to explain soon, she knew. But still! It had been totally worth getting that picture. And weren't the two of them just _cute_ with their mouths hanging open like that?

Her son's mind, meanwhile, was in overdrive. "What did – how did tantei-kun – when did he – why did he – " It was chasing after his attempts of forming one coherent, logical thought and he tried to pick up the thread of thoughts that was quite literally flying through his head at a rapid speed.

When he thought he'd go crazy from all the mental exercise his mind was getting, all due to the chibi-detective that was currently seated on one of the couches in _his_ living room of _his_ house – _and when did the world enter hell without him noticing?_ – and obviously trying to string together a cohesive sentence, himself.

"So, you are a Kuroba, too?" And wasn't it just a tad confusing, the way he said that? Kaito's mind ground to an abrupt halt. There was still the possibility – a chance; and as small as it was, it existed nonetheless – that the wanna-be-critic didn't know about his secret identity, at all. Or identities, if you wanted to be exact.

After all, Kaitô Kid was able to, and more often than not did, disguise himself and take on the roles of many different people. So, in order not to tip him off, too, he would have to "play it cool" until such a moment came as that he could be sure either way: until he was sure if Conan knew or did not know he couldn't take any risks.

Taking a deep breath to relax, he replied in the most cheerful voice possible, "Yes, I'm a Kuroba. Kuroba Kaito, at your service." To get his brain working again along with his body, he finished this sentence with a deep bow. An eyebrow went up in the little one's face, as if to say, _Overdramatic much?_ Grin never wavering, the teenager went to the couch beside him and sat down on one of the cushions lying there. This was going to take the term _torture_ to a whole new level.

And yet, as he looked down onto his littlest critic, he couldn't help but let some of that grin of his become real. Here was a chance to pit himself against a detective in an environment that he'd never made an appearance as thief in yet. It was most definitely a great way to hone his acting skills that was for sure. Letting some real emotion seep into his facial expression, he continued to stare his opponent down challengingly.

The young boy had by then composed himself, as well, and had received the challenge, though he hadn't been able to make heads or tails of it yet. It still felt as though something was going way over his head right there and then.

Deflating with an almost inaudible sigh, Conan turned his head to regard the mistress of the house curiously. "Why did you take a photo?" he asked, having his voice back after a few more moments. He cocked his head. There really had been no apparent reason for her to take out the camera in that specific moment. Or had there?

There was that uncanny similarity in looks that they obviously seemed to share (_and which had to be even __**more**__ pronounced once he was back to his regular size_). But she couldn't have meant to take a photo of that, now, could she? And in the very moment that her son had decided to enter the room, too! There were simply too many variables to consider, right?

Right?

As the silence prolonged to almost uncomfortable levels, Conan's certainty of that little truth was shaken more and more. It was ludicrous, obviously. Yet a small grain of doubt was left. Did she know…?

"You can't have it both ways, Chikage." She scolded herself good-naturedly within the safe confines of her mind, "You need to tell him. Them. Whichever." But when she'd looked back with the intention of doing just that, her son had already spoken.

"Isn't it obvious?" he remarked, "We do look scarily alike. That's probably why Kaa-san here has taken a picture. Right, Okaa-san?" A smile crept back into place on her face. Or maybe she could have it both ways, just for a little while longer.

She took the tray with the cookies and milk that she'd deposited on another of the kitchen's bar stools in her haste to get the camera ready and went into the living room, all the while stating how she agreed with her son's statement and that they did indeed share an uncanny resemblance in looks, didn't they? It was almost as thought they were siblings! (She kept the comment of _They_ _could have passed for twins, if it weren't for the height difference_, that popped into her head at that term, to herself, though)

And while the older woman was blabbering on about just how cute she had thought they had been, with both their jaws slack like that and all, Kaito used the time to study the younger boy's features in earnest, while Conan (_and, honestly, there wasn't anything else left for him to do, was there?_), all too much aware of the scrutinizing looks he was receiving from his right-hand side, was avidly staring at the older member of the Kuroba family, nodding every once in a while to signal that he was – _quite obviously_ – still paying rapt attention to her ramblings.

Which Chikage took note of and, as a consequence proceeded to stop talking after a few more moments. That, in turn, got both young boys sitting on her sofas to finally snap their face to her in mild surprise. "What did you come here for, Conan-kun?" She smiled at him encouragingly, "I know there must have been a reason, right? Why else would you take it upon yourself to walk such a long way all by yourself? You told me you were from Beika, right?"

All the shrunken detective could do was nod, while the older woman looked at her son sharply and reproachfully. In response, Kaito – at last – averted his gaze from the almost-but-not-quite-twin sitting next to him. It was so weird! Really, it felt as though it was _him_ and not that pesky little critic sitting in that sofa all over again. He'd never truly allowed himself to scrutinize his littlest chaser like that before. Even though he could also understand his mother's point about not making the younger boy overly nervous with all his staring.

"I have come here to actually tell you something. Well, erm…" he faltered slightly at the two curious looks he received. _Just how in heaven's name_ _was he supposed to tell two absolute strangers that he'd overheard some men-in-black talking about bombing their house?_

And, more importantly, would they believe him if he told them? That question hadn't really entered his mind before. Yet, right then, it seemed more than obvious to him that they most probably wouldn't believe him. Chances were, they wouldn't even listen to him finish recounting his tale, cutting him off in the middle and shrug it off as a child's overactive imagination, which was the most believable version, he admitted to himself in his mind.

Realizing that he was making his hosts wait unnecessarily, he decided to play it safe and write it off as nothing important, himself. So it was with a grin that he said "Oh, I seem to have forgotten about that." Oh no. Conan could almost _feel_ that they didn't believe one word of what he was saying. The atmosphere in the room was getting tenser by the minute. And he really didn't want to be called a "_stupid, exaggerating child that had let his imagination run off somewhere unknown with him._"

Then he noticed that the looks on both Kuroba's faces had become more and more serious, too. He gulped almost inaudibly. The other teenager closed his eyes and let his body slump, drawing both of the other persons' attention towards him. He breathed in and out slowly, twice. When he opened his eyes once more, he was feeling far more relaxed. With a slight smile he told the small boy, "You needn't be afraid. I won't run away screaming bloody murder, I promise.

Though I can't very well speak for my mum.", brief looks were traded between mother and son at that, and the junior thief's smile widened slightly, "I for my part do not get scared easily by run-of-the-mill things and also not by super-extraordinary events or outrageous tales of people flying with their own wings somewhere. Whatever you've got to tell us, we will at the very least listen to what you've got to say, got it?"

Shoulders getting slacker the more the other one talked and the more his tension seemed to seep out of him, Conan managed to offer his almost-twin a small smile. And started talking shop.

_NoGivingUpWhenYou'reYoungAndYouWantSome_

**Kuroba Kaito POV**

"I'm sorry to have imposed on your hospitality for this long!" a small bow accompanied those words as Edogawa Conan finally left their house in the late evening after assuring them that he'd be picked up by Professor Agasa on the next corner. The old man hadn't known where exactly Kuroba's house was, thus the little critic had been forced to give him a known address – the clock tower that Kaito had wanted to steal the face of once, such a long time ago, made for the perfect landmark, seeing as the professor had known the location of that, at least.

After he'd made sure that the boy had indeed been "picked up" just as he'd stated in front of them by following him to the tower and remaining there until the by-now familiar form of the older man had trotted into sight, the magician's heir made his way back home again. Weary from all that he'd heard, he rubbed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose to at least attempt to stave off any oncoming headaches. He knew already that he would most probably be wide awake once night came because his brain would go into overdrive from all the ideas that were spinning and whirling around in it.

Kaito's head was still in uproar at what he'd heard just an hour before and he couldn't make up his mind on whether he'd be better off with a cold shower to wake him up and make sure that he hadn't been dreaming at the moment of their conversation, or if a walk would help him better in sorting out his thoughts. And Kaito didn't even know where to start.

At least one thing he was at least ninety per cent sure of. And that was the identity of the perpetrator-to-be, the would-be-bomber. Really, was there even anybody else to consider? Snake just made for such a wonderful scapegoat lately. Although he was also seriously considering the option of someone else wanting to bomb their house – of all the family homes available and possible to bomb without suitable reason – he was fairly sure that nobody else was as stupid as Snake who had actually announced his plans out in the open; and in a fast food restaurant, too! What, had that man gone from stupid to no-mental-facilities-whatsoever-available-any-more?

Conan had pointed out the possibility that it was a trap, which Kaito wasn't about to discard, either. It all could just be a farce. A way to threaten Kaito – one more threat for his longtime adversary to hang above his head. What was Snake's goal? What did he want to achieve by threatening Kid like that? Honestly, if Kaito was that much of a nuisance to him, then why hadn't he killed the last of the Kurobas yet? What did he gain from letting him dangle from a thin thread like that?

And just why did he want to bomb them _after_ Kaitô Kid had gotten away from them the next time? That was at least the conclusion that Kaito had been able to draw from what they'd been saying. Naturally he hadn't doubted Conan's observations one bit. He knew, after all, what the detective was capable of doing and that he was trustworthy. Nevertheless it had made him seem far too trusting in the eyes of the detective for his own tastes, Kaito reflected wearily.

Shaking his head, he thought that he'd been more out of it in that instant when he'd gotten to know that their house – his home – was to be bombed sometime in the near future than he'd been in a long time. Anybody would be, he quietly added out loud. It most definitely wasn't an easy fact to stomach. And the idea he'd come up with hadn't been able to satisfy him completely yet, too.

Was it really either that or nothing? Was there no other way out of this? No conveniently-placed loophole? No loose floorboards to simply pick up, throw away somewhere and escape through the then opened hole? Was there truly nothing he could do to prevent _that_ from happening?

Lost in his thoughts and with a contemplative and serious look on his face, he let his feet carry him through the streets that he knew like the back of his hand since his childhood days.

Moreover, there was also _that_ situation to take into account. The thief still hadn't gotten rid of that brown bag yet, though he was fairly certain his contact in the FBI would just about jump up in ecstatic joy would he be able to get his hands on it anytime soon. But what he'd been offered in return for that favor (_an eye for an eye; otherwise he wouldn't put himself into danger like that by going to meet an FBI agent somewhere._) hadn't yet met his tastes. Kaito was a tricky customer and most certainly not easy to please, full stop.

He grimaced. To be frank, Kaito would like nothing more than to ditch that bag and have the FBI have it rather than him. The contents of it _**so**_ weren't included in his work ethic… just like the constant danger of being able to get yourself killed at almost every heist nowadays hadn't been included, either. To be fair, he'd quite literally signed himself up for it by donning his father's suit. He'd known what he'd be able to expect once he had heard that his father's death had been a murder instead of an accident.

There was that level of danger and then there was _that_ level of danger. Those guys he'd heard in that building on the night of that second to last Kid heist effectively raised the danger level up a few notches.

With a start he noticed that he'd stopped in front of his childhood friend's house. Sadly, he regarded it for a while, noting the two people (_Two? Yessss! So the inspector did go home sometimes, and leave his office, as well!_ He'd already been wondering about that.) bustling around the house in preparation for a night filled with peaceful and rejuvenating sleep and pretty dreams of far-away lands that nobody else could ever reach.

How would they react to these heavy news that he was carrying around in his heart this fine evening? Would they approve of what plans were forming in his head this instant? Would they disagree? What would they do? How would they react? A sigh. He wouldn't know, would he? Not until he found out. And then it would already be too late and he'd already have gone through with his plans.

Closing his eyes, he remembered a time where nothing was this complicated. They'd still been young and his father was still around then. Kaito had known that – no matter what trouble he got into; was it big or very difficult to get out of it again – his father would right it. His father, the great magician Kuroba Toichi, was someone whom the small boy had considered as larger than life. This was an idol, a person he could look up to.

With a nostalgic smile – remembering days from a far-away time – he set out in the direction of his own house and let his thoughts take over once more. It wasn't long before he would reach and enter his house again and by then, he'd wanted to at least have the beginnings of a plan on how to deal with this particular situation.

Reaching the front door, he was rewarded with the sight of a smiling Chikage who'd already been waiting for him to come home and who had that peculiar look on her face that just screamed to anyone interested that she was not a woman to be trifled with. Letting a small smirk develop on his own face in response, Kaito returned her greeting and entered the house. He had a feeling she already knew into which direction he was going with his own ideas and would add hers in due time. After all, he'd not only had a phantom thief for a father; his mother was most definitely cast from the very same mould, having "officially" retired from her phantom thief career two years before the magician Kuroba Toichi had started his. They would get to the bottom of this and they would come out stronger for it, he knew. The people intending to bomb their house didn't know what they'd signed up for! They would give them a run for their money!

_NoGivingUpWhenYou'reYoungAndYouWantSome_

**AN:** For those of you who don't know yet: _in dubio pro reo_ is a very often used Latin quote that stems from the Roman court system. It depicts that if there are any doubts about the guilt of an accused person at all, the court would vote _for_ the accused and let him go free. In German it sounds almost like an incantantion: "Im Zweifel für den Angeklagten." – that one's gotten stuck in my head since the first time I've heard it.

So… reviews, anyone? I can assure you, I'd be most delighted by even the least wordy of those! (you don't have to write a novel down there, after all…)

**THE NEXT CHAPTER WILL BE OUT ON THE 12.06.2012!**


	5. Running Around Again

_Running Around Again x2_

**Disclaimer**: Don't own either DC or MK! Have fun!

_RunningAroundAgainx2_

In the morning of the next day he'd been contacted again by that FBI-agent. They wanted to meet up with him, also to check him for his genuineness. "**They**" in capital letters. It looked like he had made an impression already, without even knowing about it. A frown marred his face once more, before giving way to an accomplished-looking grin. He'd gotten what he had wanted. They were meeting him for an information exchange. And they'd included the address of the meeting-place-to-be, as well. An eyebrow went up in a curious question as to what had rushed them, though, when he saw the date of their little get-together. It was set to happen that very evening.

Which suited him just fine, frankly. He'd have things to do, lots of places and people to visit before. In anticipation of setting the plan that he'd asked his mother about the day before into action he rubbed his hands together. They'd had a long discussion about what was to happen after they'd received the warning of the planned bombing. When they'd mulled it over in their heads some, what they had both come up with wasn't pleasant, to say the least.

His mother had offered to get everything cleaned out – "Just in case," she'd told him with an apprehensive look – and that was why he'd been (quite literally, I might add) kicked out of the house to organize everything else that was left to organize and put into order. After everything that had happened up until then, she didn't want to be pushed aside by him, just as his father had done. She would most certainly not desert him and wanted to play a part in any new plan he had, annoyingly enough. So she'd offered to manage everything in the house while he got everything else that they'd need, both for the heist and… afterwards. Thus, it was with a troubled look on her face that she'd seen him off that morning.

Even though his stops afterwards weren't that interesting, the first one was by far the most important one. Because first of all – and before he'd even start putting his plans into motion – Kaito had to stop by his father's grave and seek for his approval, forgiveness and protection for what he was about to do.

_RunningAroundAgainx2_

Therefore, about an hour later found him standing in front of his father's grave, his cheerful exterior gone to make way for his more serious and calculating side. In front of his father he'd never had to be someone else or act, after all. There, he could be himself. The teenager had stripped all his masks, leaving himself quite vulnerable. But he'd had a purpose. He'd come here because he'd wanted something, this time.

All the other times it was "_only_" the remembrance of a familiar face, touch or noise that had taken him there. After all this time, Kaito was still very much unused to having a grave that he was supposed to go to, in place of a father. Oh, he was used to not having a father by now, yes. However that raw emotion inside that always swelled up whenever he even dared enter the graveyard was something to be reckoned with.

Gulping loudly, he squatted down on the gravel paved graveyard floor. His eyes rested on the weird inscription that adorned the grave. His father had commissioned it before his death, so his father's family had to bow down to his father's wishes in this, at least. The funeral – completely against what his father had foreseen for his funeral service – was held in black, as it was Western tradition.

The Kuroba family had wanted to be seen as "progressive," then. They had managed that part. However, they had managed to make complete fools of themselves by not even coming close to acting the part of the mourning family. They hadn't seen the wayward son in years, maybe even a decade had gone by without so much as a "Hello" on the streets when they had met, before he had died.

"Kuroba Toichi"

"Loosening my hold on real human life, I become smaller,

Paling in the light of the darkest room,

Posthumously, my regards to the metal encasing me.

Starting out as a magician with 3 kyû, I now leave you to figure out its meaning, for life is fickle, indeed. 39, my family."

That was what the inscription read. Go figure how those four lines of poetry fit in there on a grave stone's inscription. He closed his eyes, the words being ingrained in his head already and coming up again whenever he was thinking of his late father. The poem was obvious enough, he supposed. Those were his father's last words to his family; he'd ordered the inscription to be like this in his will – his family having no say in this when he had died.

The only things that were rather weird were the numbers in there: the three kyû obviously was from the Japanese rating system of several games – Go being one of them and also one of the few games the magician had sometimes practiced in his life. (It was also used to determine the level of Aikido students.) Three kyû meant that the late magician might have thought he'd begun his career as a magician being an amateur more than a professional. (Kyû being the amateur rating system, dan being used for professionals.) Hadn't one of his mottos in life been that "human beings would never stop learning all their life"?

The 39 obviously was to be read in Goroawase, the Japanese wordplay, and it meant "thank you". Though what he had intended to thank his mother and his son for, the young Kuroba wasn't sure. He didn't think he'd done anything for his father that required thanking him for, so Kaito thought the thanks had been a little unearned and felt a little more down for it.

Getting rid of the rather sinister mood, he shook his head at his father's choice of words and then Kaito remained still for a few more moments. It took him a bit more time – _and didn't he just have all of his to spare? The heist was set for the very next day, so he'd have to hurry if he wanted to get anywhere else that day_ – to get out the words that he'd wanted to say.

"Hello, Otou-san." He smiled a sardonic little smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. Then Kaito cleared his throat – several times, loudly and overall pretty dramatically – and, putting on a brave face, ventured on.

_RunningAroundAgainx2_

Evening had him sprinting like hell was after him towards the meeting point that the FBI-agents had sent him via email that very morning. That day had been a very stressful and busy one for the junior thief. He'd gone to all sorts of places, Jii-chan's billiard hall and the bank being the last of them. His mother really loved sending him around on errands, didn't she? She'd devised a whole list – together with him, of course – the day before on just what they'd need and what they could plan for and how they'd pull those plans off.

He'd never really seen her "in action" before, so to speak, so all her son could do for the first few moments of her rattling off needed accessories was stare open-mouthed and wide-eyed at his mother. It had been fun. Not so much fun had been the running-around part of the deal, which he was just about perfect for, wasn't he? Kaito would need the work-out, his mother had argued with him, and in the end she'd persuaded him (_how __**had**__ she done that, again?_) to run all these errands all by himself and in one single day.

Completely out of breath, he finally arrived at the address of the coffee house they'd given him just shy of ten minutes before the meeting was supposed to be. Ducking into a sideway diagonally opposite of the Excelsior café, he quickly switched into a more fitting costume and swiftly put on make-up and a fitting mask.

He'd decided to appear as a middle-aged man, one of the sort that just weren't noticed if you didn't look closely enough and with a face that was plain enough not to be remembered for overly long. His mask fortunately included a wig with short black hair. Like this, he didn't have to put on a wig, as well, and maybe even tip the agent off that something wasn't wrong. Wigs always were so much more difficult to hide, after all. The "costume" he then donned consisted of a brown business-man's suit (so that the bag wouldn't appear too out-of-place) with a white chemise and a red-white striped necktie. It wasn't too conspicuous and would serve its purpose well, he thought, satisfied with the whole ensemble.

He was still panting, so he dealt with this problem by breathing in deeply several times before he felt his breath return to a more moderate speed and knew he was confident enough to pull this off. Putting on a brave face, he smiled and walked onto the pedestrian way with the air of someone walking leisurely towards what he knew would be a pleasant date with a woman. For he already knew it was a woman that was supposed to be his contact person. She was called "Jodie", and she was apparently very difficult to miss in a crowd. He didn't know much more than that about her. Well, he'd find out just how noticeable she was when he got there, Kaito mused.

And that was about as much as he'd given them as description of himself: that he'd come disguised as a business man going home from a long day at work. It wasn't all that much description to go by, but that would have to do for them. Brown bag – that he'd nicked right after he'd had lunch at home and told his mother all about his excursions that he'd done for that day already – clutched under his arm, he entered the Kissaten, in the very real hope of at last getting at least a little bit of sugar into his system that day. The teenager-thief knew he'd need it before long.

_RunningAroundAgainx2_

That evening found him preparing the Kid heist in the secret room. Kaito had told his mother that she should move the things out of this room as soon as possible the very next day, but for the heist – and the show that he'd do then – he'd need a few things that he would pick out that evening. It was hard, he mused, not to think about what the next day would – and could – bring for him and his mother. It could end up in disaster, but it could just as well end up like always: with him coming home satisfied from a well-performed show and just-as-well-executed escape and nothing out of the ordinary happening.

Or, it could rearrange both of their lives with a rather unwelcome explosion. His mind was troubled, Kaito knew. He'd been living in that one house for all his life, had seen his father and mother kiss, dance and cry there, had played, laughed and cried himself there. That one house held more memories than any one human being could hope to collect.

The three people that had been living there – and of which only two remained now – had most certainly given the house a certain spirit. That two-story house had become part of their little family, almost. To think that now they'd have to maybe give it up… it was an unbearable thought.

But Kaito already had prepared himself for this, he'd thought. When he'd asked his father for forgiveness and justified his decision should things come to – quite literally – blow up in their faces. At least he knew that his plans had his mother's approval, having been put together by them both the afternoon and evening before, right after Conan had left.

Nonetheless, when Kaito properly thought about just what was on the line – just what he would lose if he didn't play this right _and_ if he played it right – there frankly wasn't anything else for him to do but cry. In the safety of his father's secret room, with the knowledge that there was no other person in the house besides his mother and himself and with all the action looming dangerously on the horizon, he openly wept.

_RunningAroundAgainx2_

When they'd woken up the next day, all that was left for the occupants of the Kuroba household was to wait. That was the most excruciatingly cruel part of all. Both of them weren't good at waiting; however they knew they'd need their energy for what would happen later on. At least Chikage had something to do, she thought with a small smile as she was organizing the relocation of the secret room's contents (the car would go there via Jii-san; the old man was just indispensable in certain moments…) and arranging them to be sent to a little apartment in the big city of Ôsaka, along with the rest of their things, barring the bare necessities that they could buy anywhere anyways.

She would miss her old home greatly, she knew, but she wouldn't let herself think of that until it was, most certainly and without a doubt, gone. Chikage always had been a flighty person, travelling from one place to another, sometimes with only a day in-between. When she had been younger, she had travelled the world and even gone as far as Europe, after all. As Phantom Lady it had been prudent for her to keep up appearances and pretend to stay in one place (she'd been enrolled at the University of the Arts in London for that reason), nevertheless she hadn't ever been a person who'd take up residence at one place for too long.

That was also why when Kaito had come along it had almost pained her to settle down in one house. If it hadn't been for her family, she'd have left ages ago. And Toichi always had made her more comfortable at staying in that house by pulling his little family along for a trip to another town at the weekends. Whenever he was performing, he'd been careful to arrange everything so that they wouldn't be left behind. He'd kept her happy that way.

Toichi… he'd been a wonderful husband and father. The proof lay in her barely ever seeing her son without him around whenever the magician had been home. With a fond smile she recalled the romantic dinners they had had – even after Kaito had been born – and the excursions à trois. It had been a beautiful time straight out of a fairytale, she felt.

Would he approve of what farce they would pull that day? With a more confident smile she thought that he would. Definitely. And then join them in their little hiding adventure and play hide-and-seek with the authorities with them. With a sigh she reflected that Toichi really had been the best person at putting people at ease wherever and whenever it had been necessary.

Just look at how he'd totally caught her off guard and pulled her along on his crazy jump out of the window at their first date (was it a date, really? Maybe the term "meeting" would fit better to explain what they'd been doing… Oh well, there'd been so many "official" dates afterwards anyways that it truly didn't matter what you called it) on the Eiffel tower. And it had only been a small detail (a triviality, really) that she'd been handcuffed to that motorbike that he'd chosen to take to make his escape through that window. All that had counted for him – all that he'd been focusing on during that flight out of the window had been _her_.

And why did that _still_ make her blush like a teenager whenever she thought about it? Awww, but it had been interesting, hadn't it? That first kiss… and then the "official" first kiss in that restaurant… then that rendezvous in London and then that other kiss in the Big Ben and the after-heist kiss that she'd received on the observation deck of the Empire State Building in New York… Kaitô Kid, for all his bravado and shows, truly had been an internationally wanted criminal long ago. Chikage decided right then and there that she absolutely _loved_ thinking about the past and remembering things.

_RunningAroundAgainx2_

Kaito on the other hand didn't like thinking about the past or remembering things _at all_ in that very moment, seeing as Aoko apparently was totally fed up with him – seemingly because of a prank he'd pulled that week. He didn't know what to do, it was a different form of anger that Aoko was directing towards him right then. It wasn't the usual "Bakaito has done something _again_!"-kind of anger that could easily be let out in the form of a mop chase or two. Or three. Or more.

The look she was giving him brought creepy and utterly _scary_ to a whole new level, he mused in the safe confines of his own mind. And it didn't help at all that he for the life of him couldn't think of what he'd done to make her that angry. So he simply settled for sitting there, arms falling down at his sides, and giving her the best puppy-dog-stare he could with his eyes brought to their absolute limit of openness and width while she ranted and raved at him with a scowl on her face that told him just how strong the fierceness of an angered tigress was.

But she honestly looked quite good, didn't she, when she was standing in front of him like that? Though he still didn't know just where they stood (_frankly she should be as far away from him as possible, he reckoned when he thought about Snake and the bullets that were constantly shot at him in the attempt of shooting him out of the sky. He'd rather have her at a distance than deal with the carnage it would be when she'd know about him and his actions. And he still wasn't sure just whose murder it would be: Kaito's by her own hand or hers by Snake and his people's hands._), he was fiercely protective of her and always did make it a point to make sure that she wasn't in any way harmed or traumatized by any of his pranks.

"Ba-Kaito!" she shouted at the top of her lungs for the eighth time in about as many minutes. "Are you even listening to what I'm saying?" Startled out of his brief reverie her rant's victim could only blink owlishly up at her for a few more moments in which he'd heard Hakuba mutter something like "Dig your own grave, why don't you?" in English, before he was aware enough to sprout off a coherent response to her question, totally ignoring whatever other comments escaped the Brit's mouth on the length of his silence.

_RunningAroundAgainx2_

**Nakamori Aoko POV**

She was – without a doubt – deeply concerned about her childhood friend. First, he'd acted immeasurably suspicious by not doing anything at all for the whole morning (it was just after school had ended that she'd cornered him) and then he'd put the whole class on edge with every single little gesture or thing he did. The teachers couldn't even hope to teach them anything that day. Everybody was sitting at the edge of their seats, expecting something to happen, fireworks to whizz through their legs, an elephant to appear outside (right in front of their window on the second floor, notabene, just like that giant octopus that had appeared once) or an explosion. Anything would have been alright.

However, Kaito didn't deliver. Whatever was going through his head that day? He was completely absent-minded, did his tasks without much more than the necessary involvement and in general kept the whole class in an almost unbearably strung-up state. What was the matter with that boy? Kaito had done something every single day – be it small things like making one of them go through the day with a different hairdo, hair color, or costume, or be it bigger things like that octopus had been. A mop chase was the least thing that Aoko expected him to initiate that day, nevertheless he had apparently been too far out of it to realize just what he was doing to his poor classmates.

It was almost as though a funeral was happening that afternoon and he was one of the main people mourning their lost loved one. Heck, her friend had acted almost as though _he_ was the person who'd died and whose funeral it was that day! Aoko had gone through every date that she could think of, but nothing noteworthy had happened that day. Even Toichi-oji-san's death day wasn't for at least another month yet. So what was wrong with him?

When she'd finally gotten to speak to him at the end of class (he hadn't even noticed that school just let out! That tidbit alone made her worry for his health), well, she'd kind of lost her temper a bit. Just a tiiiny bit, of course. Whatever he'd done, she was sure that Kaito deserved it in one way or another.

But she hadn't gotten anything out of him. When he'd responded, it had only been to brush her concerns off as though they had been a fly that was flying annoyingly close. It had hurt Aoko when she realized that he didn't tell her anything important that was happening in his life anymore. She'd come to that realization just that afternoon, having come home and gotten her shoes off, when she'd looked at an old family picture that the two befriended families had taken when they had been younger. Could she even claim to know her best friend anymore?

_RunningAroundAgainx2_

**AN:** wow. Despite having come down with a more-than-nasty cold, I managed to successfully update the story last time. Gotta love wireless LAN and laptops, nowadays. Can't believe the hay fever completely overlooked me only to come back and bite me most viciously after all the trees finished blooming! What a nasty little monster… *haaapcheee* *pitifulsniffle* my muses seem to have been blown away with the wind which has made my hay fever develop into a cold, combined with a nasty cough to top it off. Apparently, I just haven't been busy enough lately, trying to figure out which classes I'm going to take this term. I just hope it'll be over soon… so I can finally continue writing again! ^_^

Also, I kind of dragged that cold out throughout summer, making this (unfortunately more rainy than sunny) season rather uncomfortable for me… at the same time, however, my normal pc caught a virus which made any and all written things of mine inaccessible – it took my brother three to four months (and he's a PC genius!) to fix it. (ah well, he hasn't spent all his summer time here either, so I had to wait a lot in-between fixing the PC…)

Grrrr! Sometimes things just don't want to turn out right at the time that people want them to turn out right. Hope you liked reading anyways – thanks for sticking with me all this time!

kaorixra: !Gracias para reviewing! Perdoname el retraso… estaba ocupado con la vida, la summer school y mi resfríado y el virus de mi PC… it was just too much to cope with all at once this summer!

…

Which reminds me: Liked it? Hated it? Review pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease!

See you next time! *scurries off under her blanket again*

**THE NEXT CHAPTER WILL BE OUT ON THE 09.09.2012!**

**(And this time, I can finally keep to my schedule!)**


	6. Running From Running

_Running from running x2_

**Disclaimer**: Don't own either DC or MK! Enjoy the story!

**AN**: I apologize in advance for this chapter sounding a bit corny… alright, a LOT corny… but it just didn't want to be written any other way!…

**Warning 1**: And also I should probably warn you (or is it "advertise"?) that a certain detective who has only been making strange cameos every so often (read: once) will now get his own little snippet, so as not to feel totally left out. And yes, he's not being neglected at all! *pats detective's head reassuringly* He just didn't appear in my story yet. (and, admittedly, I honestly forgot about him until now. *ducks and runs off, holding hands protectively over her head*)

**Warning 2**: Another warning is for the changes of POVs that happen frequently in this chapter. Meaning a whole lot of them are to be found in here. *sighs* _Can_ I even write a chapter without a change of POV? (rhetoric question, guys!)

**Reviews** please? Pretty please? *hurries to hide behind a lamp*

*pauses*

*points lamp at chapter* "_Enjoy the show_!"

_RunningFromRunningx2_

**Hakuba Saguru POV**

Upon his arrival at home, Hakuba instructed his housekeeper to leave him alone until "the time was up" and that he'd retire to the library for now. From then on, he knew, he only had about an hour until she'd call him and they'd leave again for the airport. He still had a flight to London to catch today. But he was also aware of the fact that he'd most probably need all this time in order to arrange his thoughts properly and to go through the problem that he'd been presented with.

Because, as it happened to be the case, the British detective was uncharacteristically troubled. He simply didn't know what to make of his classmate any more at this point in time. And that was not to say that he didn't mind not being the magician's unwilling victim for once. But the (_irresponsible as much as_) irritating thief absolutely _had_ to go and set the whole class on edge with how utterly unresponsive and mechanical his gestures, facial expressions and all in all his whole bearing had been that day!_ (And he __**knew**__ that Kaito indeed was Kaitô Kid's civilian identity, lack of evidence be damned!)_

The teenage detective hadn't been able to wipe the smirk off his face as the thief had – in the face of Aoko's totally out-of-character-move of patiently waiting for the class clown to properly acknowledge her and her ranting – absolutely and without a doubt spaced out. The messy-haired teenager had zoned out, had literally and – to anyone who was interested or cared – quite obviously been "mentally absent", so to speak, which was one thing that Hakuba could personally testify had never happened before.

Not that it wasn't normal for any ordinary teenager to space out every once in a while, mind. However, it stood to reason that this simply wasn't your run-of-the-mill teenager. The brunette could only be defined as special, in every sense of the word. Even Hakuba had to admit that there was that certain… _something_… to be found in the other's mind, which very much attracted people of a particular mold to it. "Birds of a feather flock together", and all that. And, another proverb that perfectly suited this situation went like this: "There is a small gap between insanity and genius." Needless to be said, that this thief absolutely fit the bill.

Lost in his thoughts, he reflected on their first few encounters. The blond knew he'd changed a lot, done an almost one-eighty turn, in fact, since then. Back then he'd almost been scared of the magician. Smirking, he remembered the first few experiences he'd made with him. Within the first two weeks, he'd honestly gotten the impression that he'd been singled-out to be pranked by the coolest person in the class. Especially when the magician had wanted to introduce the class to the British culture and customs – all the while majorly exaggerating every part he could and making Hakuba out to be the unfortunate victim, too.

At least that was how it had seemed. Kuroba was nothing if not a natural leader and every single one of his future classmates had appeared to follow that lead, without question. He hadn't known yet that no one – absolutely no one – was left alone (or in the attire they had come wearing) when the mischievous prankster had a prank in his head and that it was better/easier to just duck down and do whatever he said and endure whatever fate he deigned to bestow on you. What Kaito wanted, Kaito got. It almost was considered a law of physics.

It hadn't helped that he'd transferred schools in the middle of the year, either, and that he was still to this day travelling back and forth between the two countries. That was one of the rare unfortunate downsides to his fame and his profession.

But he digressed. He considered himself to be an extraordinarily patient man, but at that moment in time, his patience, along with his fuse, had simply run out. Needless to say, Hakuba hadn't counted on those two traits being an absolute must should he want to/aim for survive/ing his senior years in high school in Japan and, thusly, deal with Kuroba Kaito on a regular basis with his mind intact.

It was exactly two weeks after he'd transferred to their school that he'd grudgingly and slightly ashamedly had admitted defeat in the face of one too many ridiculous attempts at making him a figure of fun in front of the whole class and ask Aoko if "there wasn't an off-switch anywhere" on the energetic nuisance. She, seeing exactly how much this had affected and bothered him, had agreed to make Kaito "stop this phase of his" with a decidedly wicked glint in her eyes. Still to this day he didn't know what she did, nevertheless from the very next day on, the ball of energy had left his inheritance (he couldn't do anything about the fact that he'd been born to parents of two different countries, after all) well alone and out of any and all jokes. That didn't mean he'd leave the detective alone, however.

So he felt well justified in asking: "Is it really paranoia when they are out to get you?" in the situation with the magician. … And, frankly, he hadn't ever thought he'd one day apply this phrase to one of his classmates.

To be real, he knew the brunette had his good sides, too. Somewhere. Underneath a whole heap of useless insane stuff that no one but him understood. And a lot of diversions and stage props. Letting a sigh escape, the detective wondered – for the umpteenth time just why the Kaitô Kid stole. He couldn't even begin to fathom the reason. Feeling his shoulders grow heavy with worry and (was that guilt? It couldn't possibly be…) something that he found no words to describe, he seated himself in his favorite chair, having walked around in aimless circles through the room before. What would happen once the thief was successfully apprehended and put behind bars?

It took a blind and mute man not to realize that the thief was after something. What that was, though, only god knew. And it also took such a person not to see that he was being hunted not only by the police, but by someone darker, too. Had it only been at last week's heist that he'd seen someone fire at the moonlighting magician? At first it had seemed as though his eyes had deceived him. Wasn't it ridiculous that Kaitô Kid was being shot at by snipers? Those first times, Hakuba had been able to explain away those "illusions" and "hallucinations" he so obviously had. When they kept happening, however, he'd finally paid closer attention to them.

But no proof had yet been found that there'd ever been a barrage of gunfire involved in the heists. The detective had been able to wonder about his own sanity declining for a time, until the next heist happened. And the snipers were involved, again. He'd seen them with his own eyes, he had! Nobody believed him when he told the Task Force members. They even claimed he'd been "infected with the virus of insanity", as they dubbed it. The blond knew the truth.

There were people after Kaitô Kid, people who would go even so far as to openly shoot at him after or during heists. It went without saying that they had someone in the Task Force working for them; nothing else could explain away the lack of evidence.

Was the thief in the right, then? Was he not one of the bad guys? Was he – as the chosen color of his suit suggested – one of the good ones, one of the "heroes"? What did that say about the police force?

Also, if that were the case, then where did that leave him, Hakuba Saguru?

_RunningFromRunningx2_

**Edogawa Conan POV**

The young boy had – after having explained all that he'd overheard – been understandably confused by their quick and sober acceptance of his story. He'd have thought that they'd accuse him of being a liar or of him having an overall too active imagination, not of the quiet acceptance and understanding they'd showed him. And he'd felt – from the moment that he'd seen the other boy – that there had been something off with him. There had been something they hadn't been telling him and which put everything he'd heard into perspective. There had been something that had gone way over his head – if he'd liked it or not.

And that irked him to no end. So he'd – as soon as he'd been able to again (read: during the night and safely away from any curious ears that might hear anything they shouldn't) – called up Jodie-sensei and told her about what he'd heard and what to put a guard there to watch over that house and its inhabitants. He wasn't comfortable with houses blowing up and people dying when he had gone there to change something. At least like this he had been able to finally – at least a little bit – calm down his conscience that had been bothering and nagging at him for the rest of that day and go to sleep.

The next day he forgot all about that when Jodie-sensei contacted him and told him about what the FBI had been able to unearth concerning Kid heists and a little brown bag they'd gotten from a person they believed to be the Kaitô Kid.

Apparently there were people shooting at Kid, "and this has been going on for how long already?

Oh, indeed. From the very beginning then. And what's that about this brown bag you keep mentioning? What was in there?

Oh.

**Oh**. I see. So you are going to the Kid heist tonight?

Mhm… I'm still debating over how to escape my minders.

Yes.

Yes.

What are you thinking about? Uhum. That could work. Alright. See you at six then. Bye." With a small yet relieved sigh Conan hung up and put his mobile into his trouser's pocket. Ran's former teacher would pick him up at the detective's house. That would at least put Ran at ease, while giving him the freedom of being able to help the FBI (and, in extension, the police) in keeping people from getting killed that night.

With a pensive frown he contemplated the information he'd gotten. The junior detective hadn't been aware of there ever being shooters at Kid heists. Only once. Once he'd personally seen the Kid take a bullet, though he'd mostly only concluded what had happened after he'd found the dove and his monocle lying together with the box containing the Russian treasure egg on the pier in the haven. That was the only moment he could think of that the phantom thief had ever dealt with bullets. Didn't his modus operandi dictate that no-one got hurt? And the moonlighting magician had yet not to return a jewel that he'd stolen.

Then how come there were people shooting at the white-clad thief? They ought to have a reason for doing so. Was there in the end more going on than what the police – and, thus Conan, too – was aware of? What was happening to the mostly peaceful and harmless exchanges between the police and the thief? They were slowly changing, Conan could see. In retrospect, he reflected, they had been changing from the very start, hadn't they?

Conan recalled how – shortly after the reappearance of the magician thief – he'd heard someone talk about how the newly-resurfaced phantom thief 1412 was more like an apprentice, someone who had been plunged in at the deep end and had to improvise – just look at how he had been acting! The chibi-sized teenager hadn't really been interested in a thief who, first off, didn't hurt anybody and secondly returned anything he'd stolen. He'd been far more interested in arresting true murderers, people who hurt other people and had actually earned what they got.

The thief, meanwhile… well, he'd been a challenge when Conan – as Shinichi – had pitted himself against the other. He'd been a very welcome respite from all the murderers and victims and murder cases Shinichi had been solving at the time. It had been more like a pastime, he reflected, how he'd treated that robbery. Shinichi hadn't given it his all, he knew. He hadn't wanted to, needed to, because the thief would return what he'd stolen anyways and, to top it off, it had been the face of a clock tower's clock that he'd wanted to steal at that time!

It had been more of a guessing of how the thief would pull that off than how he could help the police arrest the pesky larcenist. And he truly hadn't wanted to be caught up in the chaos that had reigned once the thief had appeared – he still didn't want to be trampled to death by overzealous policemen out to catch the nuisance of a clown-turned-phantom-magician, thank you very much.

That the thief had wanted to preserve the clock and led the police there to do his job for him, well, that had been a rather unexpected outcome. But still! Conan simply couldn't understand how murderers could kill people. And try to kill _that_ thief, on top of that!

_Had they even realized just what they had signed up for when they had first set out to do that?_

_RunningFromRunningx2_

**Kuroba Kaito POV**

Kaito was wearing a dark blue t-shirt, a faded-grey jacket and black slacks that made him blend in with the crowd more easily that evening. This time he'd set out to steal the "Domestic Peace Jewel", a dark brown jewel that was edged on the top of a turtle's back. The turtle was to be displayed in the Museum of National Treasures in Kamakura, a small town that was about half an hour's train ride from Tokyo.

It was a two-story building with a huge floor area of about 800 square meters (=8611 square feet) and an annex that measured about the same area but it was used for offices (for the curator's, among others), so it wasn't deemed as interesting or in any way important for that night's heist by the police. The second floor – which was used as one single exhibition hall – spanned 600 square meters. That alone made it the perfect location for the little marathon that Kaito had in mind for the police's exploits tonight.

With a wolf-like grin – showing fangs and all – and with a decidedly wicked glint in his eyes, he made his way towards the small crowd that had gathered in front of the museum. The policemen were only doing their job by keeping them from entering. Well, Kaito would make sure that that wouldn't be going on for too much longer.

_RunningFromRunningx2_

The heist had been a complete and overall success, he mused, once more going through the crowd of people to make his exit. The light green turtle made of marble was snugly lying in his bag, together with his pistol. It had gotten ample use that evening, starting and ending the marathon that had evolved out of the police's chase after him. It had been more like a contest between the police and his fans.

_Kaito'd let those in at the very beginning, stating that it had been an order coming directly from Nakamori-keibu in order to make sure that the police knew where the phantom thief's fans were when the heist would start._

_He'd told "his fellow coworkers" that it was all a new plan that the inspector had apparently come up with for that heist. Now, what did it tell him about the general competency of the police force that they'd believed him without question? He should have known that you couldn't make an old dog learn new tricks: they should have known by now that he was a master of disguise._

_Kaito didn't want his fans to get hurt – still didn't – that was why it was simply safer for them to be in the building (where he could also keep an eye on them) rather than snooping around outside, trying to get in somewhere somehow. Had they done that, Kaito couldn't have guaranteed for them not to cross paths with Snake or any of his underlings. That way, it was simply easier and all in all better, the thief thought. It had most definitely made tonight's chase more interesting._

His skin tingled from the adrenaline that was still pumping through his body. The people around him were still confused and were looking and walking every which way in the search of the elusive thief. The exits had all been opened, courtesy of Jii and a conveniently placed remote release, thus rendering a search for Kid under the chase's participants quite moot. The phantom thief could have escaped via disguising and mixing with the show's spectators who stormed out ages ago had he wanted to.

The police – having realized that – had quickly given up on getting anything out of that plan, thus leaving the crowd of civilians to their own devices and making a sweet escape quite possible for him. Ah, the scent of success and freedom was quite a pleasant one, after a long night's work, he mused as he went down the street after having turned left at the entrance of the museum.

Turning around a corner a bit farther down the street that the museum was situated on and into a smaller alleyway, he swiftly disguised himself as a student. Letting a small chuckle at a memory of the faces of the police when they got sight of him escaping, he was caught off-guard by what he heard next.

"Leaving so soon, Kaitô Kid?"

Closing his eyes, he contemplated his next course of action. Snake always did have the worst timing ever – right when he allowed his awareness of his immediate surroundings slowly fade, the old geezer came unexpectedly from somewhere close and surprised him. Not that the teenager let the surprise show up on his face, though.

Turning around, the teenager-turned-thief regarded his opponent – and the two subordinates to each side of him – with a mix of weary curiosity and boredom. "What do you want, Snake?"

"I will kill you. And your family. Now, die."

"Snake always did have quite a bad sense of humor, didn't he?" Kaito wondered idly in his mind about the older man's movie knowledge as Snake brought out his gun and pointed it straight at his heart.

_RunningFromRunningx2_

**Edogawa Conan POV**

_That_ had been nothing short of a disaster. It hadn't been a heist, no, it had been a running event; they had been absolutely played by Kid. Like they were marionettes, the thief had sent them about after somehow making the guards at the door open it and let in all the crazy fans. "What the hell?" he'd only had time to think that one thought, shortly before everything had gone straight there.

It had been child's play to then make the police _and_ the fans chase him. The only thing the thief really had to do was appear right in front of them and then run away like mad from them. The young detective could have sworn he had heard the mad cackling of the thief bouncing off all the walls of the huge room.

With a grimace he went out of the main entrance and avoided having other people bump into him with practiced ease. The thief couldn't have gotten too far, right? On a hunch, the small boy turned left, not knowing that one of the five FBI agents that had accompanied this heist – a certain Jodie Santemillion, by a very interesting turn of fate, – followed him stealthily on silent feet, signaling to her companion to pursue the boy, as well.

_RunningFromRunningx2_

**Nakamori Ginzo POV**

One Nakamori-keibu, inspector responsible for the Kaitô Kid task force, didn't notice anything of that, however, as he stared down hard at his men. For chases like those were the exact reason why he'd always applied for a task force consisting of permanent members. And people who actually knew the Kaitô Kid's MO and his strengths and weaknesses. As it was, though, almost none of the men he'd hired for that evening's team had been able to keep up with the thief. And he made his dislike of that fact and his displeasure known to all of them. Loudly.

Having shouted at them for their failure, he made his way towards his older officers – the only five people who had been at his side for all the Kid heists up until then. They had been able to secure some of the phantom thief's chosen means of attack, at least. Presenting him with the still-smoking remains of two smoke bombs that had detonated that evening, they had a less bedraggled appearance and seemed more in-command than their coworkers, if a bit out of breath still.

_RunningFromRunningx2_

**Kuroba Kaito POV**

Turning around, the teenager-turned-thief regarded his opponent – and the two subordinates to each side of him – outside only displaying a mix of weary curiosity and boredom.

"What do you want, Snake?"

"I will kill you. And your family. Now, die." A grin was allowed to ghost over the would-be-murderer's face, when all of a sudden everything went by very fast.

Kaito could only wonder at the loud noise, because as soon as he heard it, he ducked to the left and did a small roll sideways, all the while holding onto his things with a vengeance. When he was the right side up again, his card gun was in his left hand. The thief had soon learned that being both-handed was far more advantageous in situations like these.

Snake was nowhere to be seen, though, which caught him off-guard for a moment. (_The old man wasn't that fast – he wasn't supposed to move that quickly – where was – ?_) Only one of his underlings was lying prone on the floor. A quiet, relieved sigh coming from his right hand side had him swivel in place, coming face to face with the junior detective.

Conan's boots were still sizzling with energy and (_Was that electricity? Coming out of the shoes? If so, Kaito thought that he'd most definitely have a talk with Professor Agasa about certain inventions of his. The teenager-turned-thief wasn't too keen on getting one of those shoes into his face or anywhere close to his body in general._) the boy's eyes were fixated on the place where the men-in-black had been seen last, though Kaito could literally feel half of the detective's gaze resting on him, as well.

Standing up, the phantom thief saw a shadow move from the corner of his right eye. Great. There was another person there – or was that two more people? –, meaning they couldn't really _talk_ very openly. What next? Ah, right. Introductions, anyone?

"Nice entourage you got there, boozu. Though I have to wonder as to their intentions regarding acting on their plans." They hadn't been the ones making Snake flee, after all.

Conan raised an eyebrow and regarded him with a level stare. He knew – something. What, that was to be seen, still. His attitude never wavered when from behind the corner there came two people, a man and a woman. The woman was someone Kaito would know anywhere. In the minute it took for them to get closer to the light, Kaito thought back to their first meeting.

_RunningFromRunningx2_

_He'd decided to appear as a middle-aged man, one of the sort that just weren't noticed if you didn't look closely enough and with a face that was plain enough not to be remembered for overly long. His mask fortunately included a wig with short black hair. Like this, he didn't have to put on a wig, as well, and maybe even tip the agent off that something wasn't wrong. Wigs always were so much more difficult to hide, after all._

_The "costume" he then donned consisted of a brown business-man's suit (so that the bag wouldn't appear too out-of-place) with a white chemise and a red-white striped necktie. It wasn't too conspicuous and would serve its purpose well, he thought, satisfied with the whole ensemble._

_A little bit panting still, he dealt with this problem by breathing in deeply several times before he felt his breath return to a more moderate speed and knew he was confident enough to pull this off. Putting on a brave face, he smiled and walked onto the pedestrian way with the air of someone walking leisurely towards what he knew would be a pleasant date with a woman._

_For it was a woman that was supposed to be his contact person. She was called "Jodie", and she was apparently very difficult to miss in a crowd. He didn't know much more than that about her. Well, he'd find out just how noticeable she was when he got there, Kaito mused._

_And that was about as much as he'd given them as description of himself: that he'd come disguised as a business man going home from a long day at work. It wasn't all that much description to go by, but that would have to do for them. Brown bag – that he'd nicked right after he'd had lunch at home and told his mother all about his excursions that he'd done for that day already – clutched under his arm, he entered the Kissaten, in the very real hope of at last getting at least one coffee into his system that day. The teenager-thief knew he'd need it before long._

_The bell that signaled to the staff that a new customer had arrived was still ringing in his wake when he thought about his character's identity. The name he'd given them as contact information wasn't much more than an anagram of the name Arsène Lupin, the fictional gentleman-cambrioleur from France. Énesra Pluin._

_It wasn't as though he couldn't have created another identity altogether, or as though he wasn't creating one already by doing what he did, but Kaito had thought it fitting for the contact information he'd give out to an "old" contact of his dad's. It was notable, most definitely. It could be interpreted as a link to his own phantom thief identity. But that only served to make their meeting that much more interesting. More spicy, if you will._

_They hadn't been joking, the teenager soon found out, as he saw a blonde, short-haired woman sitting at the bar together with a man. The man beside her saying her name often helped tremendously. "Jodie". To Kaito, it sounded almost funny, how he continued going on about something she had said. To an outsider or innocent bystander, the grey-haired man in the suit may have tried to convince her of something, to argue with her about something she had said before which was wrong in his eyes, but to Kaito the façade was almost too easy to notice._

_Even though he could tell from the way they sat and acted that both had a decent amount of practice in the area, the teenager still surpassed them in perfectionism. This – the acting, performing and staging – had been ingrained into him from a very early age on, thus it almost came as a second nature. His skills in acting were at his beck and call, he didn't even have to lift a finger to have them – for lack of a better word – "cover" his whole being. To the thief it was as simple as to snap his fingers and thus he called on them once more in that moment, coming closer to the couple with every step he took._

_Kaito was nervous. Those were FBI-agents, not from the police or the task force. Those two last ones mentioned were alright, those were ok. He was used to both, even going so far as calling some of their personnel "uncle". Having the FBI in such close proximity was nothing if not unnerving. His skills would be tested, he knew. If they were up for the challenge and passed the test, well, that would be seen in the end. Énesra Pluin was called to the forefront._

_With easy steps he arrived at the bar and sat down right beside the woman who was giving him an evil look by then. He raised an eyebrow in challenge._

"_Excuse me, sir, but this seat is reserved." She'd put her jacket onto it – which I'd deftly removed and deposited on the bar table, before she'd been able to snatch it back. It was currently resting in her lap. She must have thought Kaito very rude – or very drunk already, depending on the point of view, although she wouldn't be able to tell if he was because the bar stools were a decent distance from one another – just bursting in there and grabbing her attention like that._

_The brown bag was safely stored underneath the table, resting side-by-side with hers, when he answered. "Oh, but your friend must be very late, then. Not even managing to come get his seat before I did!" As though he found that funny and a bit exaggerating on the behavior he was displaying, he chuckled._

"_I am sorry, sir, but could you please move to the next barstool right beside you? That would be greatly appreciated." If her cold look before could have been called "evil eye", the glare she was giving me now had earned itself a place under the top five glares Kaito had ever received. Impressed, he did as she bid him. To stay in the role he had created, he ordered himself a beer (not that he'd be touching it in the course of the evening) and "the lady whatever she'd like", he told the waiter with a wink towards the blonde._

_The two agents were getting impatient, in the meantime. It was clear to them that the Kaitô should have made an appearance already, seeing as he was punctual in everything he did, right? Smiling slightly to himself, Kaito asked where the restroom was and – after putting the money for the beer and a piece of paper saying "to the nice lady so patiently awaiting my arrival" onto the table underneath the saucer of a tea that had been forgotten on the bar – ambled off into the given direction, without once glancing back, the bag carelessly having been "forgotten" right beside the lady's._

_Kaito knew that they'd found his set-up when – right after he'd climbed out the window of the restroom (he had fortunately KNOWN about that, seeing as he'd come there in the morning right after going to his father's grave. He'd tried everything he could, found out where the exits were, where the seats were and where they would most likely meet him. The bar had surprised him some, but then again, the FBI wasn't very predictable to begin with. Neither was he, so the tables were even, at least.) – there was a small commotion and running, cursing and a fist hitting a wall could be heard from outside – not necessarily in that order._

_The disguise master had then easily put the mask and everything away again, showing his own face once more, as he walked off, out of the side street into the more lively shopping street that the café was based on, whistling and in his mind doing a little jig. That was one successful mission that he'd fulfilled with all his limbs intact. Ticking it off of a mental and altogether very full to-do-list, he went home._

_RunningFromRunningx2_

Raising an eyebrow at the blonde who was gazing at him with something akin to recognition lighting up her eyes (_Really? Was that so hard to guess?_), Kid slowly brushed some dust off of his pants, hiding his gun in the folds of his jacket. He didn't believe for one second that the others hadn't seen the motion. It was meant to tell them he presented no danger to them. Not for tonight, at least. And frankly?

Kaito was fed up with the situation at that moment, anyways. Snake wasn't supposed to have come when he did – he wasn't surprised at the older man's interference, but he would have thought that it had come earlier already. Besides, was it really Snake who had announced the Kuroba family home's bombing? The teenager wasn't too sure about that, any more. And that just left the question gapingly wide open. Who had wanted them dead if not Snake? Logic determined that he was the only person who fit the criteria. And what else could the utterance _"As soon as he gets away from us next time, we're going to get him! He won't know what's coming to him."_ mean if the speaker had not been Snake? Bristling internally, the young thief brought his attention back to the situation at hand.

"We have already met, haven't we? Kaitô Kid. Or should I rather say Énesra Pluin?" she asked him with a twinkle in her eyes, amused at his obvious choice for a name. Kaito did nothing to neither acknowledge nor deny the accusation. This appeared to have been confirmation enough for the agent to continue speaking unhindered.

"So that really was you. I had been wondering already. How did you come across the bag's contents? Did you steal them?" As though Kaito would answer those questions right then and there. He raised an eyebrow in a silent question, asking without words if she honestly believed him to answer that truthfully.

Conan had in the meantime gone towards the prone man-in-black and rifled through the older man's pockets without the others acknowledging it with more than a curious sideward tilt of the head. The Kaitô was intrigued. What did the young boy intend to find? But the teenager knew that if he stayed long enough to find out, his wrists could be sporting trendy handcuffs and he would most probably be carted off in a matching car. After all, he knew about the young detective's predilection for showing off.

So, with a slight sigh and a blink to simultaneously clear his eyes as well as his mind of any troubling thoughts, the thief let one of his smoke bombs – the ones that only worked shortly and thus rendering more than simply changing clothes or a short run moot – roll to the floor immediately in front of him and, in the moment of his audience's inattention (or better: during their focus on the bomb's smoke), he made his escape, not even able to guess at what the agents and the detective would be talking about in his absence.

_RunningFromRunningx2_

**AN:** GRRR! Hakuba, your thoughts are too disorganized! And, yes, that train of thought was absolutely intended. No kidding.

…

Ah well, at least I got the reason for his lack of appearance into this chapter. -.- He truly is one utterly uncooperative character, isn't he? And to think, I'd actually wanted him to think about something else entirely when I started the snippet!

…

*grrrr!*

**THE NEXT CHAPTER WILL BE OUT ON THE 14.10.2012!**


	7. Waking Up - In The Midday Sun

_Waking up – In the midday sun_

**Disclaimer**: Don't own either DC or MK! Enjoy this next, rather **explosive** installment of my fan fiction!

_WakingUp-InTheMiddaySun_

**Kuroba Kaito POV**

His arrival at home was met with a very quiet, yet tense atmosphere. Once he had entered his room via window, his mother had only shortly come to see whether he was injured or not. Assured that he was unharmed, safe and home now, she went to do the laundry. For the fifth time that evening, though Kaito didn't know that. As for the young larcenist himself, he went about preparing the three small devices that he had bought the material for just the day before.

If worst came to worst, his mother and he would have to be able to run out of the house at a moment's notice. If it didn't happen that day, well, they hadn't planned that far yet. That bridge was to be crossed when the night was over. Both of them being who they are/were – namely, phantom thieves – they could be pretty flexible and spontaneous when it came to plans and the execution thereof. They had to be good at improvising to have made it this far in their night-time jobs, after all.

Having fixed the three "cocktails", the teenager-turned-thief solemnly regarded the pre-winter weather that was waging war – literally – with the bedding and linen of his neighbors. It was a windy and cloudy night, the wind being highly unpredictable and going this and that direction, whatever way it wanted to. A bad night for going flying, which was why the heist had happened only at ground level, second floor level tops. The museum's low floors had necessitated this slight change of modus operandi, as well.

Kaito sighed. He'd love to survive this night without any unwelcome incidences; however he knew it most probably wouldn't turn out just how he imagined his life to go on. Fate always had a way of coming back at him, he'd learned, be it through small things (_Aoko pulling one of those awful finny things out of her purse_) or bigger events (_bombing threats and their subsequent realization_). Giving one last glance out of the window, he leisurely ambled out of his room and set out to find his mother. The time for what looked to be yet another long wait had arrived.

_WakingUp-InTheMiddaySun_

Morning was dawning already when Chikage finally heard a strange noise that sounded as if something was scraping across the southern outer wall of their house. Naturally her son was sent out to investigate. And what he found there was not entirely unexpected by either of them, too. It was with just a bit of a heavier heart and a lot of dread that he reentered the house after cataloguing exactly what kind of time bomb it was that had been placed alongside their house wall, with a cable going from there to yet another bomb on the wall on the other side. It was no model that Kaito could dream of not setting off while in the process of disabling, thus he didn't even dare to try.

When he saw his mother waiting for him right there in the entrance corridor, almost no words were needed to get his message across. He only said, "Ten minutes." In response, Chikage stalked to her bedroom and got ready to get out, leaving Kaito to do the same – in a hastier and swifter fashion. Whereas his mother's steps took the word "deliberately controlled" to new levels, his own seemed far crazier, yet he miraculously pulled them off without falling or hurting himself.

Arriving at his room, Kaito said his last goodbyes to the room that had once been his sanctuary. He made sure to take the bag that he'd already prepared – and which contained the jewel he'd stolen just that night – along with the self-concocted bomb cocktails and not set any of them off by accident while he maneuvered his way through the door of his room and back down again.

He reached downstairs without any trouble. There, he made a beeline for the counter in the kitchen, placing one bomb cocktail on it, before going over to the living room. Once there, he swiftly entered the secret room, placing another bomb cocktail in the middle of the cleared-out room, so that in the case of an investigation into the matter of their house's bombing, the police and the FBI wouldn't find that there had been a room that seemed "_off_", so to speak. He had to make sure they thought of the hidden secret room as "just another room in the house of the Kurobas". And that was where his bomb cocktails came in.

The next thing he had to tick off of his to-do-list was to phone Jii. So he typed the older man's number into his mobile and pushed the call-button. On the third ring, the old man picked up.

"Konosuke Jii here. Who's there?"

"Jii-chan, it's me."

"Young master. Is it going to happen?"

"Yes. Were you able to prepare what I asked you to?"

"Yes, everything is quite ready for your plan. Whenever would you like for it to start?"

"In about ten minutes. Can you get everything into place until then?"

"Sure. But I need you to give me ten minutes. No less."

"Thank you, Jii-chan. I greatly appreciate your help. Ten minutes it is. Starting now."

"Understood. See you in ten minutes, then."

That would mean the old man would be there, on the street leading to their house more or less five minutes after the bomb had detonated. Satisfied that everything went as much according to plan as it could, Kaito hung up.

Slowly he walked backwards. Reaching the entrance again, he saluted the ex-secret-room with one last hand gesture. He took in the by-now quite familiar slightly musty smell of the room and left it in one fluent backwards step through the slightly raised step. Kaito then took off the improvised "entrance door" to the room that they'd made of cardboard with both hands. It wouldn't be necessary any more.

"Good.", he smiled sadly.

The rooms by then were quite bereft of their homey feeling, seeing as all the details and knickknacks that had decorated them before had been taken away. The only things that had remained in the living room were the sofa, the table and a small blanket that would have been thrown away soon anyways.

The master bedroom and his own room were looking quite Spartan as well –his mother had cleaned out everything except for the bare pieces of furniture that managed to still give the rooms a certain "lived-in" feeling but which they wouldn't miss afterwards. They had to keep the general things so as not to tip anybody off that the bombing had been expected by the people living there. To any policemen at the scene of the bombing later on it would look like any other house.

The secret room was the only room which he'd – with his mother's help – completely cleaned out. That one room – including the storeroom and the planning corner on the first floor that were attached to it by a staircase leading from the secret room upwards were completely bare. That was one thing that he desperately hoped to avoid in the future: to have to clean out everything again. All the chaos, lying around tidbits and knickknacks had not been fun to get out.

Passing a few more moments in almost reverent silence, he placed the third bomb cocktail in the living room, before walking back to the entrance. These past six and a half minutes had both of them ready to leave – the bomb cocktails having been placed in their previously assigned places as already mentioned and ready to react should a detonation of any of the outside bombs happen anytime soon. It was with a particularly strange sense of relief that Kaito had realized that it was still happening right after the heist. So Snake wasn't out of the question as a possible perpetrator, at all.

Both – mother and son – paid their respects and said their final goodbyes to the house before madly dashing out, seeing as they'd dawdled for about three more minutes and time was running away from them at an alarming rate. They didn't have anything with them that would slow them down – except for the clothes they were wearing, that was, and a bag in which still rested the jewel Kaito had stolen the evening before. Kaito and his mother only had time to cover their ears and push themselves onto the ground for safety before the bombs went off. Kaito's self-made bomb cocktails went off pretty much immediately after those, having been shaken and activated by the first detonations.

The fireworks would have been a great spectacle to see, had Kaito cared to take pictures or raise his head and watch.

But he could do no more than close his eyes and quietly let a tear or two escape his eyes as he lay there in the grass of the front lawn beside his mother when the whole house that he had called home all of his life quite literally went up in flames.

_WakingUp-InTheMiddaySun_

**AN:** Yesss, cliffhanger! I know I'm evil. And I actually wanted to leave you all hanging after having written this, but then I thought that the chapter was just way too short like this. So, there you go! Continuation of the chapter can be found here:

_WakingUp-InTheMiddaySun_

The teenager didn't really want to know what it looked like now. There probably was a huge, gaping hole in the ground where once had stood their house, their home. Maybe some carcass of their family home would be left: a frame, a structure of a building that you couldn't recognize any more. More tears threatened to fall down his cheeks.

When Kaito was more aware of his immediate surroundings again, he noticed the additional cars and people that were coming closer to have a look. It must have only been for a few moments that he'd blacked out, it didn't feel as though he'd spaced out for long. And yet there he could already make out at least one person he recognized from photos in his father's book make their way towards them to help. That one, his father had filed under the caption "FBI". Apparently, there were still some of the people that his father had researched on in business.

Only barely managing not to raise an eyebrow in a challenging way, the young teenager let himself be helped up by a rather burly, huge man. Upon closer inspection, he appeared to be rather Frankenstein-like in appearance. But it seemed as though Kaito's body was still in shock. His limbs obeyed to his brain's commands very sluggishly and his brain felt like mush. The ringing in his ears that didn't want to stop definitely didn't help his thoughts any.

… What was he supposed to do now? Where was that supposed to go? Ah, yes. The plan.

That, finally, was something he could hold onto. Where was his mother? Ah, right beside him. And was that crying? Were those tears running down her cheeks? Frowning, he put a hand to his own face. Yes, he had tear tracks running down his own face, as well. But he didn't feel sad. He felt numb. Hollowed-out inside and stuffed with various spices, like they did in America to their turkeys on Thanksgiving. That was how he was feeling. Not that he'd ever made this experience before, but then again, he'd never done a lot of things before that he was doing right then.

Right at that moment he noticed something. His mother, around whose shoulders he now had his arm and whom he was slowly guiding away from the vicinity of their house, had shortly drawn away her hands from her face a bit and winked at him. Then she put her hands in front of her face again and pretended to cry. He'd realized that now. Her son had to suppress a flinch at just how good an actress she really was. However he knew that she only pretended to do so, he had seen her small smirk – it had been minimal, as a matter of fact – before she had broken down "crying" again. Had she not turned to him at that instant, he wouldn't have noticed the very brief upturn of the corners of her lips.

Right. They had to move. The plan would have to be executed swiftly and without anyone getting more suspicious than they were already. Kaito surreptitiously made a beeline for the grey car, all the while appearing to calm down his weeping mother and studiously avoiding looking back.

_WakingUp-InTheMiddaySun_

Sirens could be heard in the distance.

"I just want… one more look back, okay? One last look?" He winked at her, his eyes holding and transferring all the meaning they could to his mother, while pretty much all the other people around them were far more focused on the goings-on around the perimeter of the house. The FBI-agent that had pretty much been _guarding_ them up until then had left them alone for a few moments in order to get some other things from their own car. The FBI-people had been surprisingly helpful, he had to admit. But they – his mother and he – had dawdled as long as they could already; maybe a little too long. So, he decided it was time to put the next step of their plan into action.

But, before that, one _last_ _look_.

Almost agonizingly slowly, the now-homeless teenager turned around and regarded the now-destroyed area where the house – _their home_ – had once rested upon. Just yesterday, they'd been going in and out of that place. Just the day before yesterday, they'd heard of the bombing and had the shrunken detective pay them a visit. Just then. And now, it was all over. Never again would he see that house.

All he had was a moment, but that was enough to take it all in. His memory was a great help in that, seeing as he would be able to conjure the image of their once-house and its interior up again at any given moment in the future.

As for the state of things, the place looked desolate. Only a skeletal ruin of the inner and the front and back walls was left, seeing as the main bombs had detonated at the sides of the house and the bomb cocktails had only aided in making the rooms, the ceilings and the walls cave in. They hadn't done anything to make the whole house crumble to ash.

On a completely unrelated note, didn't that blond woman who had been leaning over the wreckage and was now turning and heading in their direction seem kind of familiar?

Right, it was time to go.

_WakingUp-InTheMiddaySun_

Fortunately she'd been stopped by that other FBI-agent and was held up for a few, very valuable seconds. Those were all it took. There was only one moment – one blink of an eye, really – when Kaito finally deemed it safe enough to put their plan into action. When that moment came, and the attention of the FBI-agents wasn't solely focused on them anymore, he calmly said "Now." And all hell broke loose.

Chikage, sitting on the back seat of the car and having waited for that one word only, quickly pulled him into the car while Jii simultaneously started the motor. That all went according to plan up until Kaito felt another pull towards the exactly opposite direction than his mother was pulling him, by something that had latched onto his back shortly before his whole body was in the car. Naturally, it got dragged in, as well, right before the car was completely set into motion and quickly drove down the street.

"_What-?"_

_WakingUp-InTheMiddaySun_

**POV of Andre Camel, FBI-agent**

The FBI-agent had found proof for a few of the bombs having gone off independently from the others and had wanted to inform his partner, an FBI-agent called Jodie Sterling, about it, when it had happened. His eyes had widened considerably when his attention had gotten attracted to what was happening in the background of his conversation with his partner. He had already been aware of the people who'd been in the house before the bomb had gone off and whom he had accompanied to the car that they were resting at then before leaving them in the care of another agent, when the next thing had happened. One moment, they were there – at that grey car – and the next they were gone; the car having sped away in the matter of a few seconds.

His reaction had already told his partner that something important had happened, so he didn't have to tell her to turn around when the car sped off. He was sure she was only able to make out the rear end of the car as it turned around the corner, before she ordered him to give chase. All the while, he was thinking over and over that _this wasn't happening under their very noses right then! It couldn't be!_

First the house got bombed, then the ones they were supposed to watch and protect were kidnapped, and now the kidnappers thought they could get away? _Not. So. Fast._ Losing no time whatsoever, the FBI agents jumped into their car and sped away after the kidnappers' grey one. It couldn't have gotten far, after all, and the color wasn't one that the people around here used a lot for their cars. They should be able to find it easily, right?

Imagine their surprise when all of a sudden they were confronted with an army – and, yes, you could call this a veritable army – of grey cars blocking their view ahead of them.

_WakingUp-InTheMiddaySun_

**AN**: "What is this, grey-car-day?" ooooh how I WANTED to insert it at the end here! But I had to refrain from doing so. It just wouldn't sound right, would it?

:_D awww poor FBi… they have no clue!

Short, and yet, concise and coherent. That's how I like my fanfictions! ^_^ All the action's in there! *does a little jig*

Anyways.

I'm sorry for the shortness and hope you have a nice day!

**IMPORTANT NOTICE: I HAVEN'T YET DECIDED WHEN TO PUT ONLINE THE NEXT CHAPTER SEEING AS NANOWRIMO IS COMING UP SOON AND I STILL NEED TO FINISH SOME OF MY OTHER STORIES…!**

**GOMEN! I'll update my profile and keep you informed as soon as the next chapter is going out!**


	8. What's To Live For?

_What's To Live For? You Could See What I've Done_

**Disclaimer**: Don't own either DC or MK! A short warning: the time lines in these little snippets might overlap a bit, so the action within one snippet might happen earlier than the one in the next one, but (fortunately) this only seems to be the case at the very beginning and close to the end. I hope you don't get confused (too much) and that you enjoy this next installment of my fan fiction!

Just to be clear and include everything: Google isn't mine, either.

_What'sToLiveFor?_

There had been a bit of a fight for "What part of whose body went where?" then, though they all made sure that they couldn't be seen through the back window of the car. Or, at least, two thirds of them tried to do so. Once that had been settled (pretty much), Kaito finally dared open his eyes.

Bright, blue ones stared back, confused and scared. Aoko.

"_Oh_-"

_What'sToLiveFor?_

"-_**HELL**_!" Nakamori-keibu – after about three hours of constant swearing – was officially out of breath, if not out of words to describe the situation. He let himself fall back down into the chair that had been provided for him when he'd been told what had happened. They were in the Metropolitan Police headquarters, still, him not even having gone home for a change of clothes the night before. They had still been cleaning up after the last Kaitô Kid heist just the night before and had just then come back to the police headquarters to get the bureaucracy out of the way, as per usual.

Nevertheless, the head of the Kaitô Kid Task Force wasn't out of steam, yet. Oh, internally, he was fuming and swearing up another storm, alright. It quite literally sucked when you were a police officer and your daughter had been kidnapped to – _somewhere_. And you had no right (_or excuse_) to be on the search team that was sent out to look for her.

And it absolutely sucked to repeatedly have to listen to team members tell you that it might have been Kid, after all, who'd kidnapped his daughter. It was him, after all, who would gain the most by doing so, they'd reasoned, even though it threw them a little bit as to why he'd done that. And if it had been Kid who'd kidnapped her, then she'd at least still be alive and well. It didn't make it right or anything, but it would have made his heart a little lighter knowing it was that bloody nuisance-in-white.

Regardless of _who_ it had been, though, the fact remained that the kidnapper had made an incorrigible mistake by doing this. It didn't do to anger him this way, _him_, the head of the Kaitô Kid Task Force – you had hell to pay if you did. Ginzo Nakamori swore that if even one hair was harmed on his daughter, the responsible party wouldn't know what had happened by the time he was done with them!

And if it had indeed been Kaitô Kid who'd abducted her… so God helped him, he most certainly wouldn't give the thief an easy time escaping at the next heist!

If he'd dared _touch_ her, however, … the inspector knew he wouldn't be able to be held responsible for his deeds then.

_What'sToLiveFor?_

Some time earlier, in an unobtrusive grey-colored car, two of the occupants were locked in a staring contest. Different thoughts chased each other in the brunette magician's brain, ranging from "**Oh hell**! Aoko!" to "Oh hell, **Aoko**!" It went without saying that he wasn't the one to break the silence that had fallen over the car – the noisy exception being occasional change of the loudness of the motor, of course – and that he didn't look like he would be saying anything worthwhile anytime soon. They were sitting beside each other now, as opposed to on top of each other, as it had been the case earlier. Kaito's mother had chosen the far right hand seat, leaving Kaito to be sandwiched in-between his mother and his classmate.

What had happened? Well, long story short, when his mother had pulled her son in, Aoko had latched onto his shoulder's sleeve and been dragged in, as well. That was the short version. In the longer version, Aoko had – in that very moment – managed to thwart his plans of "kidnapping himself". For at this point in time, not only the Kurobas were the ones kidnapped, but the inspector's daughter had obviously been kidnapped, too.

And that was one thing that got the police far more involved in finding them than Kaito had originally planned for them to be. Not only was the police force after them now, but the Task Force would definitely find a way to wedge themselves into the investigation, as well. And Kaito had been counting on the police force _alone_ being quite a bit of trouble to avoid already, thank you very much. There was no knowing what the Task Force would come up with to find them!

After all, they did have some tricks up their sleeves (as they had re-activated and gained even more contacts in various … interesting establishments and places since the Kaitô Kid had restarted his nighttime-career). To think, his own heists and the chasing after him that they'd been doing had most probably equipped them with more experience, contacts and information networks that could prove difficult to circumvent now…

He had to get her back to her father safely, and he had to do so as soon as possible. What to do to make that happen, however? Quietly, he leaned forward and told Jii to get the car to one of the flats the old man owned for the exact reason of Kaito (or rather, his father) having to make a quick get-away and be invisible for a few weeks. Kaito hadn't wanted to include Aoko in… this whole operation to begin with, thus he was planning on "getting rid of her" (read: getting her back to her father) that very same day.

But first, he'd need to check the situation at the police headquarters himself and see just how he'd be able to smuggle her in there and back to her father who practically lived in his office the days following Kaitô Kid heists. They couldn't get her back to her own house, seeing as it was the direct neighbor of their own house which had been bombed now and the FBI, police etc. had to still be swarming the place. Also, they had no means to find out just how much collateral material damage had been inflicted on the surrounding buildings, either.

So, the Nakamori's house was out. That left the option of getting a police inspector's supposedly kidnapped daughter into the headquarters of the Metropolitan police. His heavy-lidded eyes could already see the pandemonium that would break out upon her discovery there.

Sheesh, that girl would one day be the death of him, he was sure of it.

_What'sToLiveFor?_

After a rather long fifty-minutes curving around Tokyo to be clear of any and all tailing FBI-workers, they had finally gotten to Jii's house. Safely, fortunately. The three filed out of the backseat of the car and hurried to the door of the small house. The Kurobas had thought ahead and brought caps and disguises for all of the three "kidnapped victims", even though they originally only wanted there to be two. A spare disguise was quickly made up of the left-over items that they had managed not to use in their own.

The addition to the otherwise successful "kidnapping" was in the meanwhile quite put-out and sulking but let the two Kuroba family members do with her as they wanted, because – when she'd briefly exchanged words with the older Kuroba, she'd been promised to be told everything (_this was said with a meaningful glance from mother to son_) once they'd arrived at the end-location (which was really the "mid-location". Confused, anyone? The real end-location was set up close to Ôsaka!). So they had no trouble in getting her through the entrance of the old man's house as fast as they could.

Once there, they were finally able to breathe comfortably once more. The whole troupe had arrived at a safe haven, at last. But before they would tell her anything, they all needed something to drink. Preferably, something strong. Thus, Jii brew them all one kettle of tea and filled another one with coffee, while Kaito went to take a shower and Chikage made Aoko help her set up their "temporary beds" in one of the spare rooms of their current residence that they'd been shown to by the older man at their arrival.

The old man had been their plan F, should anything go wrong. Fortunately, seeing as this flat simply was the closest for sorting out that kind of situation. Aoko latching on to them definitely hadn't been part of their plans. They hadn't packed for that kind of occurrence, at all, but that didn't mean they couldn't improvise and work with what they had and what was there already.

Thus it came to pass that several spare bed sheets and futons were rolled out and they were able to comfortably set up camp in that room. Only once they were settled in the living room (curtains closed; they didn't want anyone to accidentally see them from the street), tea and coffee in their hands, they were finally able to talk shop.

_What'sToLiveFor?_

In the ruins of the Kuroba house, however, nothing was quite as relaxed as the three "kidnapping victims" were at that moment. Angrily, the FBI agent Jodie Starling went up and down in front of her partner. They hadn't been able to follow the grey car at all – not even gotten close enough to make out the number plate, nothing. And nobody of the people around the place could remember its arrival on the site, either – it had unobtrusively arrived and parked right beside an FBI car that people had given a wide berth when they had noticed those belonged to some kind of authority persons.

Great. It was like the FBI currently had three huge cases looming ominously above them in addition to the trouble the "Black Organization" was able to come up with a rather disturbing frequency: a) Kaitô Kid and whoever was chasing him with bullets, b) the case that Kaitô Kid had brought to their attention (_however that thief had managed to stumble across _that_ at a heist_) and c) the kidnapping case of the Kurobas that they had promised the cool kid Would. Not. Happen. Well, not in as many words, but she had promised the small detective to keep an eye on the house and make sure nothing bad happened in the next few days – the kid had to have known something was up, however he apparently hadn't been too sure of anything yet. And now, just look at where that had gotten them!

She was just about fuming with the uncomfortable feeling that they'd been _late_, the_ FBI_ had been _**late**_ for something this big.

_What'sToLiveFor?_

"You can't make me! Something big is going on and you're involved in it! I want to know what it is and just what your part in this is. And I want to know now, so start talking already!"

"Aoko, we can't tell you –"

"Yes, you can – and you will! I want to know just what is this big that you need to bomb your own house and kidnap yourself for it!"

To refute that would have equaled signing his own life sentence, Kaito knew. So he kept quiet. With a disapproving frown, he looked down at her face (_when had he stood up? He couldn't remember._) and anywhere other than at his mother's face. He had realized early on that she was all for telling Aoko everything – without leaving out any details for once – but that she'd follow his lead in this. For now.

Aoko, in the meanwhile, was fuming. She hadn't thought it would be this difficult getting anything out of her childhood friend, however, she had known for a while now that he had been doing _something_ (_Strange? Weird? Shady?) _behind her back. The question was what it all was about. And why he insisted on her going back to her father's house when it was obvious she had been kidnapped, too, was something she couldn't comprehend, either. Wasn't it safer for them if they had her where they could keep an eye on her? Now that she was involved, it might just be more dangerous for her to be showing up at her father's place again than to simply stay there with them.

Besides, she just wasn't about to back out now, was she? It wouldn't do to stay back now – she felt that she was involved already simply by association anyways, so it wouldn't make much difference to her if she stuck with them.

"I will say it again and again: Tell me! What is it that you are this jumpy about? What made you bomb your own house?" She just knew it had been Kaito who'd been made to have a hand in the kidnapping, if not in bombing his own house. Judging by his slight flinch at that accusation, she had been right on both accounts. It made her worry, though, that he had let his guard down that much even as to let her see that flinch. Though she didn't comment on it.

"You can't make me go back to my own house when you yourself don't have one to return to anymore! So hurry and fill me in on whatever's going on."

Kaito's mouth opened, though what he'd been about to say to her, he forgot, for his eyes had looked up to take in the very sight in front of him: Aoko, her hands folded in front of her, was staring at him with an angry expression – so far, nothing out of the ordinary, right? What struck him as special was the way her eyes were glistening with unshed tears.

Gulping, he silently conceded defeat, at least temporarily. He'd caused her too much pain already, hadn't he? Taking her father away from her side only to have him chase after a ghost – a phantom thief's son who had taken up the mantle only to avenge his father's death in his own search for closure. He had been sure he would be punished for all the sleepless nights, the worrying and the absence of both a friend and a father sometime, what he hadn't counted on was that it apparently was due earlier than he'd thought it would be.

"I'm waiting."

That made him aware that he'd been staring at her quite rudely – a slight tinge of red already marking a light blush on her own cheeks, as well, - and that he was taking his merry time in answering her questions. Seeing as he'd resolved to do so, anyways, it would be alright to waste a little more time pondering just what to say. With a little hand gesture, he let her know that he was persuaded to tell her and to calm down. Now, the only problem that remained was: What to tell her?

Only peripherally he noticed his mother releasing a relieved sigh when she'd seen his gesture. His mind was in turmoil. Could he tell her about Kaitô Kid? How much was … safe – how much knowledge would make her look for the closest weapon to relocate his head? Sitting on needles now, he went back to the original questions. She knew he'd been the one to bomb his own house – and, obviously, to do the kidnapping, too. But she didn't know much else, did she? Well, how about going with the truth, then?

_What'sToLiveFor?_

The coffee and tea cups had stopped steaming a long time ago when Kaito finally was left to his own thoughts and scheming again. It was close to evening already, and yet, there was so much to do, still. Even if he'd conceded defeat earlier, he didn't _dream_ about having Aoko come with them. He'd rather offer himself up to Snake than get Aoko into any more danger that she most definitely wouldn't know how to get away unscathed from on her own!

He had to find a way to get Aoko safely out of this mess. But how would he pull it off? Fortunately they were in Jii's curtained house – a place nobody would even bother to look, because it honestly was very unlikely that someone kidnapped themselves and everybody knew the late magician's assistant had upheld a good relationship with the Kurobas. Because of that, he'd also had to make an appearance at the bombed house as soon as word had gotten out about what had happened, thus his current absence. That left Kaito to ponder everything calmly and analytically.

The story they had set up for this place's current occupants was that relatives had come to his place for a short visit before going on to Ôsaka later that week. In short, they were able to switch on the lights and use the bathroom as they liked, without having to think about neighbors worrying about potential robbers in the house. Another plus point was that this place wouldn't be that difficult to make Aoko forget about. If he told the old assistant to sleep over at a friend's house for the week after they'd brought her back then she was sure to give up, wasn't she?

Additionally, a second topic was occupying the rest of his thoughts. The bombing of the Kuroba house had been a major hit to the messy-haired teenager's confidence, regardless of how much of it had been enacted by Kaito and he had to get over that before doing anything to bring Aoko back to her father. He hadn't let anything show earlier, but now that both females were preparing for bed and having a nice, long bath, he felt safe enough in the thought of being alone that he could finally let go. Big, fat tears were already rolling down his cheeks. That he'd done that the day before already had helped, but not by much. His home, his father's house – and he'd bombed it.

What a way to discard all the cards he'd been holding in his hand, wasn't it? At least now he could deal out new ones without having to hope for a draw _at best_. Most card games were like that, weren't they? If you had a bad hand you should – either slowly or all at once – get rid of it in order to pick up new cards that you could (or could not) work with. By bombing his house, he had discarded his whole hand. He had lost one turn, but the next round he could join in again. Oh, how the other players would gape once they realized he'd not only lost one round, but changed his whole plans in the very same move, too.

They were quite convenient, these new beginnings.

And yet… and yet.

He'd…

Dry gulping didn't help abate the sorrow he was feeling any. Neither did his now-shortened breath. Time seemed to slow; stand still; then pick up and go on again at a speed he couldn't comprehend. Had it been minutes? Hours? that he had spent there, in that room, kneeling on the floor and unable to make himself any better and similarly unable to simply stand up and leave, nonetheless?

He had…

An almost inaudibly small rustle brought him back to reality abruptly. It was as though a piece of paper had been cut neatly in half and he noticed that he'd been spacing out, and at the same time he was acutely aware of his surroundings. It was disconcerting, to say the least, though it seemed to help, too, all at once.

With a heavy head and an equally heavy heart he chanced a wary look up at the entrance to the living room. Aoko, clad in his mother's pajamas was standing right there, in the doorway, regarding him. He couldn't bring himself to look away.

It surprised him a bit when she crossed the room in quick, sure steps only to get down right in front of him and look deeply into his eyes. They'd followed her movements and hadn't broken contact with hers once. Then she surprised him again by putting her arms around him and embracing him. She was doing that a lot lately, wasn't she? But he didn't care about that. Or even about just who it was that had joined him. All he cared about in that instant was that she was there, right there, with him and giving him all the comfort she could provide, even if she didn't quite understand what it all was about.

He hadn't been able to avoid it. He hadn't done anything to stop it. Had he even done enough? Had he done the right thing?

In the end, only one truth remained:

He'd destroyed his home.

All of a sudden, uncontrollable, loud sobs racked his body and Kaito truly let go of all the sorrow, sadness and guilt that had occupied his heart for so long.

_What'sToLiveFor?_

A day later, the sun had deigned to shine once more over Tokyo. No clouds could be made out on all but the horizon and thus, the celestial body depicted on the Japan's flag was the silent witness to the start of a conversation that would change the next week's happenings tremendously.

"Good work. You will be rewarded greatly. Yes. Yes. No, I will deal with that myself. Thank you." He had begun moving out of the building already. The other man in the grey suit was following him obediently, like a dog. Really, sometimes he wondered what his boss had been thinking when he had given him that particular underling. Not that he wasn't useful as a scapegoat every once in a while…

"Has everything been happening to your satisfaction?"

"Yes, so far everything is going according to plan. The Kurobas do not seem to have died in that blast, though that can be rectified sometime later. Instead, they have been kidnapped along with some local girl. Kaitô Kid should be out of the picture now, fortunately. He's probably lamenting the loss of his family already from what secret place he's holed himself up in." A little bit of gloating had never hurt anybody, had it? "He will be too busy to even think of stopping our plans."

Dramatic pause to make the other understand just how important what he said next was.

"Make sure that everyone gets the following order: Kill everyone involved in that kidnapping . I don't care about some underdogs who want to play with the big guys by playing kidnappers. The kidnapping was their luck, but it will soon run out and I will make sure of that. Now go and tell the others."

Having gotten rid of that man, the villain of the day made a beeline for his car and got in. To say that Snake was happy would have been an understatement at that moment. The man was outright ecstatic, at least on the outside. Not everything had been going according to plan lately, however the kidnapping had happened in their favor, saving them the trouble of being the executioners of the late magician's family. Killing innocents wasn't all it was cut out to be, sometimes. And the boy had been rather young, too. Oh well. Orders were orders.

_What'sToLiveFor?_

The man who had politely gone aside to make way for the other two who had been about to step outside of the building had done a double take when he saw just who it was that had exited the headquarters of the Metropolitan police. He'd only just managed to plant a bug of his own creation (_small, unobtrusive_) in the other's suit before he'd gone in and stopped to lean casually against a column to listen in, as though waiting for his beloved girlfriend police-woman to come out and have lunch with him. What he heard, though, didn't put him at ease at all.

Out of that conversation, the one order stuck out in his head afterwards, "Kill everyone involved in that kidnapping." – What the hell? Great. At this rate, they would _never_ get rid of Aoko! When Snake had entered the car, he could already hear the bug falling off and disintegrating. (_Small, unobtrusive and with a short lifespan, his brain helpfully supplied._) Just perfect. His own designs still couldn't hold up to what his father had managed to create.

So they couldn't bring the girl back to her father anytime soon, huh? Ah well, he could at least make sure her dad knew she was still alive and in safe hands for the time being. For this purpose, he went up to the floor that the Task Force was located on by elevator, crossed the room with sure steps and knocked on the door to the intimidating inspector's office, thrice. A policeman's knock.

He made sure to look absolutely business-like as he was let in and sat down in front of the table. The inspector was looking out the window, having turned his back on the intruder.

"Make it fast. Has anything relating to the kidnapping of my daughter or Kaitô Kid turned up?" The barked-out order didn't get him off-track, a soft smile making its way onto the business man's face, instead, before being eradicated and his expression changed into something more appropriate.

"No, sir, unfortunately I do not know of anything regarding these issues." Naturally, all of that was the truth. Aoko hadn't truly been kidnapped, after all – she had come with them on her own, much to his chagrin – and Kaitô Kid, for once, had made no public appearance or anything to do with what had happened. The phantom thief was involved indirectly in this affair.

One could hear the inspector's eyes close to slits in the next words he uttered. "Then why in heaven's name do you think I would be interested in anybody coming here nagging me about anything else?!" The older man got louder, the farther his speech went on, however still not turning around. This couldn't be going better, Kaito rubbed his hands together in anticipation of what was about to come within the confines of his mind.

"No, I do not think you would be interested in any other offer, at this moment. Allow me, however, to indulge in myself a little bit, and leave you this letter. The words within are the most informative, I think." He'd spoken the last sentence in the voice he used for his heists, intentionally giving away just who he was to the ever-alert head of the Kaitô Kid Task Force.

When the inspector whirled around at those words, being sure about the identity of the intruder from the voice alone, there was no sign that anybody had ever entered his office at all. The only proof that there had ever been anybody there at all was one letter lying innocently on top of one of the paperwork piles on his desk.

_What'sToLiveFor?_

Aoko was happy that she had been _allowed_ to stay. In her head, a sarcastic voice formed several different versions of how her childhood friend could have told her that. All of them sounded less unwilling and waaay less arrogant than his formulation. Really, just who did Kaito think he was?

Of course she would want to find out just what everything was about. Naturally, she had prodded and prodded after he'd given her – a much edited version of, but nevertheless, – the truth, although he hadn't given in. Much. He'd told her how men with dark intentions were after them and how they had intended for the house to be bombed – and how Kaito had come to the conclusion that the house would be bombed either way they looked at it, thus deciding to help the bombs along a little, himself.

Why that had been such a good idea at the time, however, she couldn't even start to grasp. Then there was the kidnapping. Well, obviously, the Kurobas were being targeted, weren't they? So they needed to "lay low" for a while. Achieving that would be done in the easiest fashion by pretending to have been kidnapped, they had agreed on. Yeah, right. They could have at least told someone about it! And wasn't her father a police inspector? They could have done so much better… The truth just sounded like a plot that came straight out of a bad detective novel. Or, worse, out of a fanfiction of one.

Fact was that she hadn't been part of the overall plan, at all. And that Kaito had obviously left out huge, Himalaya-sized chunks of what else had been going on, too. Thus it was with a decidedly wicked grin that Aoko welcomed the young magician back to the house. He was in for some questioning, she knew.

Nevertheless, when she hung her head out into the doorway of the small house to welcome him, she was stopped in her tracks by his foreign appearance. That would most probably be categorized as one of the things he hadn't told her, she was sure. But it could only be him who had entered the house, for his mother and the old assistant were accounted for already. Strangers didn't own the only spare key to the house, either. And they wouldn't have ignored her presence as he had and gone on in the motions of stripping out of his jacket, she was sure. Intruders, heck, dogs and even cats would have been more alert than the person that she was by then scrutinizing critically. When had he disguised himself? And how come he was this good at it?

For the first time, Aoko thought back critically to his other disguises. When was the last time, he – Ah, correct. That had been at the Skiing week they had spent together with their class. Hadn't he been disguised as Kaitô Kid then? That had been an awfully good disguise, as well. And before that? He'd disguised himself as another classmate in order to get away from her mop oftentimes enough for it to count as some kind of routine already.

As he slipped out of his shoes, having discarded the business suit's jacket already, she couldn't think of any other occasions off the top of her mind then, but every disguise that came to mind had been, for lack of a different word, perfect. Perfect in its look, perfect in the execution of the person's mannerisms and habits. (though the one as Kaitô Kid didn't actually count, seeing as she – as well as most other people in their class – never had seen the thief face to face yet)

Was it possible, that…

The girl shook her head, determined to get rid of those thoughts as soon as possible. Instead, she put on a happy face, greeting him with a chipper "Okaeri!" (_AN: Japanese for: "Welcome home!"_) as he was in the motion of loosening the tie around his neck a little. He froze for a millisecond after which he put on a funny face and, ducking a little, shrugged her off with one of his patented Kaito-idiot-grins, retreating to the bathroom with a decided slouch. Of course, he'd found a valid explanation for the disguise. (_They had been kidnapped, hadn't they? This disguise was completely legitimate. Nothing to see here, now move on, thank you._)

Aoko was left standing alone in the doorway to the living room, wondering.

_What'sToLiveFor?_

The afternoon of that very day, they were relocating. Chikage felt that she quite liked sightseeing tours if it involved her sitting in the front of the car. The sunglasses and the hat didn't annoy her much, either. The two lovebirds still weren't talking, however that would soon resolve itself, too, if she had any say in it. If it didn't, ah well, there were still some of those boxes at their intended destination, filled with stuff that Kaitô Kid used frequently at heists. She could just, let's say, drop one, accidentally? Right in front of Aoko-chan, maybe, that would do the trick. Or maybe even _on_ her, that would have her son either scurrying to help her or debating what would be the lesser evil: running away, standing stock-still or running towards the girl to help. Oh, she could already envision the scene in front of her mind's eye! Yes, that would be quite a hassle to explain away, wouldn't it? She was already looking forward to seeing how Kaito would talk himself out of that one…

And maybe she was a little bitter that he had _**yet**_ to tell the girl anything about his… _recreational_ occupation. If she really was his love interest, then Chikage was of the opinion that she should know just what she had signed up for. Honestly, her boy turned out to be much, much shier than her husband had ever been. "Go for it!" a big part of her had been chanting in her head from the moment that the girl had been dragged into the car and she had realized what had happened. That had been the perfect opportunity, hadn't it? He could have told her everything. What he was doing now had the label of "procrastination" written all over it in big, fat, rose-tinted letters.

What was it about love that made the guys shut up about the most important things in the faces of their partners? She wouldn't have waited that long. In fact, she didn't, at all. It hadn't taken her future husband that much time to figure out her civilian identity, though the little detail of him having unmasked her in the middle of their downwards fall from the Eiffel Tower had been a great tool. What a charmer he had been~!

Snorting to herself, the mother-of-one quietly pondered the situation. The girl was involved simply by being there, how much would full disclosure hurt _now_? So maybe the girl would use her son as a doormat for an as-of-yet-indefinite time to come, but the mother felt that he had had _that_ coming to him for a long time already. She would bet good money on the outcome of any confrontation between the two.

Chancing a quick glance to her right, she thought that she might just have a betting partner, too.

_What'sToLiveFor?_

The only witch currently residing in the Ekoda ward was not happy. She couldn't understand. Why did that insane magician think he could outrun his demons by keeping not only one step ahead of them but dancing around and making grimaces and smiley faces alike as though ridiculing them? Just what made him tick that way?

Koizumi Akako supposed she had to hand it to him, though. He had not only taken her by surprise, but outright shocked her by his actions alone. Unintentionally, too, she thought with some grumpiness. She had consulted with Lucifer on what to do right after the Kuroba house's bombing; he'd advised her to stay out of whatever was going on, thus explaining her absence at school the beginning of that particular week. The witch had been otherwise occupied.

Namely, she had wanted to make sure the thief was still alive and well. Lucifer hadn't wanted to tell her anything on that front, however, which had angered her in more than one way. Never before had he withheld information. Yes, he'd riddled some of what he'd told her, and sometimes she'd had to wait for the right time when he would finally explain to her what was going on. But this time, it had been different.

Lucifer had flat out ordered her not to ask him about the white thief any more – for he would not give her any information about that subject at all, for whatever reason. This, of course, had only made her curiosity rise to new heights. Consequently, she had grumbled, asked, then nagged, tried to persuade, and (_on one occasion, though she would forever deny this if asked_) even begged the spirit to inform her about _anything_ concerning her classmate. She had tried to use reversed psychology, too. Nothing had helped. In the end, Lucifer had refused and left of his own accord. She hadn't been able to get a hold of him again for almost four days after that.

This had sent her into a bit of a panicked state – how could that have happened? She had completely forgotten her position, hadn't she? How could she have driven the spirit so far as to even leave her just like that? – which had abated somewhat upon his reappearance, fortunately. Really, what was it that made her this concerned about the white-clad annoyance? Akako shouldn't have acted this unreasonable. If Lucifer wouldn't tell her something, then that was that. The witch should have accepted it, not made such a fuss out of it.

Still… she was worried about Kuroba. The teenager was too insolent for his own good sometimes. What did he think, he was invincible or something? If he continued to make fun of the wrong people in the same vein, he'd soon find himself falling flat on his face. So, what if he had already made the wrong kind of enemies? The witch hadn't been able to think of anything but the worst case scenarios for two days after the self-staged kidnapping.

On the third day, Kaitô Kid had deigned to show up again, being his usual loud, obnoxious self. For this purpose he'd gone on a rampage through the city, it seemed. For one week from that Wednesday to the following one, there was not one day without Kaitô Kid appearing anywhere.

Be it as a headline or on a photo in the newspapers and in magazines, Kaitô Kid came up. His face suddenly cropped up on top of newly-discovered dolls from Taiwan that sold like hotcakes all of a sudden, the thief was used as an advertisement gag on various leaflets as well as on TV. Various reruns of his heists were aired, though afterwards the people responsible at the individual TV stations strenuously denied ever having had a hand in those – apparently, some sections of the building that were rather vital for broadcasting had been closed off – even for personnel – on different days of that week. There was no telling just what _that little stunt_ had possibly cost them yet.

Furthermore, there was the Kaitô Kid merchandise that seemed to materialize out of nowhere: puppets, imitations of his hat and monocle (_Akako could swear she had even seen his joke of a gun on display in one of the shops around Harajuku_) could be bought at the shops around town. Not to mention the varied interpretations of his clothes that seemingly any of the thousands of clothes stores in Tokyo were stocked with suddenly. Koizumi Akako did not even want to start on the internet. How he'd managed to persuade Google Japan into doing a Google doodle just for him… Brief, Tokyo had turned into a madhouse.

It was weird. She was quite dissatisfied with the whole situation, to be frank. Not only was she not able to influence it even a tiny little bit (she had no idea what the thief was aiming for, nor did she know any of what his opponents' side was planning to counter this sudden Kid-contagion), she was absolutely befuddled and confused by the actions of the larcenist, leaving her at a loss as to what she should start to take into consideration. Akako had no idea where to even commence.

When the spirit had finally reappeared, the first thing that had come to her mind had however not been to ask about what had prompted that sudden change of modus operandi, instead, she had inquired about the Nakamori girl's whereabouts, which had, coincidentally, been the right thing to do. Where Nakamori Aoko was, Kuroba Kaito wasn't far. That little tidbit of information had then given her enough leverage to be able make a general guess about the situation.

Aoko was safe, alive and well. And she currently inhabited a small flat in Ôsaka, a place which had soon been checked out by one of her spying ravens. Kaito wasn't the only one who was able to use birds to his advantage, after all.

Made of a material that was neither plastic nor metal, her little raven was more than perfect for the job; it was soulless, thus making any damage done to it irrelevant, should it not be taken out of the sky by anything. In the latter case, the material would sink into the floor, leaving the hunter without any sign of a bird ever having been shot. Leave no proof behind; wasn't that one of the thief's rules?

Apparently, said thief was on holidays in the Kansai region at the moment, as well. What he was doing, scheming or plain _eating_, though, she didn't know. The ravens were only able to let her know that he was there, not managing anything other than that over this spatial distance. It had been frustrating to find out, but that was one of life's little twists for you.

She didn't think she could hope for anything better at that point in time, considering Lucifer's refusal and the obvious limits to her own magic that she had to accept. So she had to content herself with what she had. Fortunately, that was more than the average person was aware of, otherwise she might just go insane from all the not-knowing.

_What'sToLiveFor?_

The region around Ôsaka was stunningly beautiful, if one had time to properly look at it from a window. She hadn't been allowed outside yet, for fear of a policeman recognizing her and reporting it. This house-arrest would be driving her mad, to be frank, if it wasn't for the various boxes filled with miscellaneous things that were currently innocently lying strewn around on the small hut's floor. There were sooo many new things to discover in them! Aoko hadn't known where to look first upon opening one of them. (In her defense, it had been open partway already; otherwise she wouldn't have laid a finger on it. You didn't touch other people's property, right?)

More than half of the inventions within made her extremely suspicious, though. And she began to wonder anew. Her suspicions had abated a little upon relocating; however they hadn't ever left completely. It now being the fourth day after the staged kidnapping, and the second day after the mysterious Kid-appearances had started up, life at the little hide-out had somehow started to take on a certain kind of a routine.

Kaito would be up first in the mornings, closely followed by his mother. They'd be out of the house already before Aoko even gave signs of waking up and she never saw them leave and only ever got to come face to face with them again at around dinner time, when they came back. The only one left at the little hut after the Kurobas had gone off to who-knew-where to do who-knew-what would be the late magician's old assistant.

Aoko had the feeling that he was only there to watch over her and to act as a kind of prison-guard or something the like, though it did not make her uncomfortable, seeing as he didn't always know where she was (she knew because he'd gone looking for her in irregular intervals) and left her alone and to herself whenever she needed it. He seemed to sense her need for quiet-times whenever she felt like it. All in all, she'd rather he be there than that they left her alone.

He even helped her clean up after she'd opened yet another box and pulled out all its contents! Jii-san was awfully helpful in that aspect. Sometimes he almost seemed apprehensive and nervous, though, as if he had something to hide – and yet didn't know where to start hiding it! His behavior was puzzling, truth be told. He didn't appear to know what to hide, and at times he'd put certain things away, out of her sight, before she'd even noticed they were there (not that it helped much; she figured out what it was shortly after because he'd be otherwise preoccupied soon enough).

Snorting to herself quietly while she opened yet another box filled with interesting inventions and – was that a plush bear? _Fluffy!_ – she reflected on the older man's behavior some more. It was weird, wasn't it? They – all of the three people involved in the kidnapping – had something to hide, this much was obvious. What was it? What was going on to make them so jumpy (when she'd surprised Kaito the day before by coming around the corner too fast, he'd tensed up so much she thought he'd need a massage. Or a mop chase, just to work off all that tenseness.) and what was it with these mysterious boxes?

She'd just pulled out a metal… robot from the box and held it against the light. P2. What was it with the Kurobas and strange codes that no one could decipher? This wasn't the first robot she'd found – meticulously, she put it right beside the other one, from the box that she'd opened before. The letter on that one was P3. If there was another one with P1, she'd put it right besides the others, maybe then it would make some sense. Why did the Kurobas have robots in a box? Aoko could already tell that they had not put them into the box so that they'd sale them at a flea market later.

With so many boxes they could cater to more than two flea markets, themselves. What other purpose there was in the things within those boxes, she couldn't fathom, though. Ah. There it was – carefully, she unearthed the third robot from the confines of the box. That was even weirder, though: the plaque on it said "K." She deflated slightly, her shoulders dropping. Instead of there being another "P," as she'd thought, there was a "K." What was going on with these robots?

It threw her for a loop. Leaning her head to the left, she regarded it curiously. It was a rather interesting specimen of a robot, she had to admit. Interested now, she wondered what it was used for. Just then, the old man called her from the kitchen to ask if she was alright with take-away Takoyaki for lunch.

Standing up abruptly, she replied, "Yes, that's quite alright."

Then she stopped, for she had finally noticed the weight of the little robot in her left hand. Intrigued, she stared back at it. The robot weighed less than it looked like! The metal should have been heavier, she was sure. And the plaque on top of it! Still, it was almost feather-light in her hand; she could support it easily with one hand only, even!

This was extremely odd, she felt. Plopping back down, she gave the other robots a level look. Her eyes straying back to the one in her hand, the robot with the "K" on it, she slowly started shaking it. Figuring nothing was going to break after a few moments of doing so, she shook it harder.

There.

It was muffled, but she could just make out dull sounds from inside the robot as she shook it. It was obvious to her now: something was hidden within. On a mission now, the girl tried figuring out where the robot would open. For this purpose, she looked at it from all angles and sides, searching for a gap or a fracture in the material. On one edge of the plaque, she finally made a find.

There was a little gap in-between the plaque and the robot's belly, where it was located, where she could just wedge her nails in and try widening it. It wasn't as easy as it sounded, for the material was rather hard and the gap seemed to have been made like this on purpose, too. Aoko was sure that this was a good hiding place. For what, though?

After more than a minute of wedging her finger nails into the gap, she felt that a considerable change in armory was needed. She put the robot down, gave it a challenging look and went off, in search for something firmer and more capable of opening that piece of… resisting metal. She wasn't able of coming up with anything more insulting at that moment in time, though she knew – should it resist her attempts some more – something decidedly more fitting would come to her.

Going into the kitchen, she gave the older man working at cleaning the dishes from breakfast a smile that was meant to reassure – and in truth did anything but –, went straight for the drawer that all the knives resided in and studiously regarded the selection. Choosing one, a very straight knife with a veeery thin edge – just what she needed –, she ignored the in the meantime frozen male at the sink and meandered back out, all the while humming the joyous melody of _Old McDonald had a farm_ under her breath.

Jii-san in the meanwhile wasn't sure if he should follow her – and hold off any and all explosions (he'd promised the Kurobas that he'd keep the hut from catching fire after all) that might occur in the path of her wrath – or if it was more prudent (and safer – both for him and any furniture in the house) to simply stay and go look what the girl had butchered after the fact. It didn't help matters that shortly after she'd left the kitchen, weird crunching and cracking sounds could be heard from the next room. A few minutes into listening to the inevitable death struggle of whatever thing that wasn't doing whatever the stubborn-headed girl wanted it to, he deemed it safer to simply wait it out and see what new things she'd found this time after she'd slaughtered them.

With a satisfying clack, the material finally gave and she was free to look into the insides of the robot. It had put on a good fight, but after a few more minutes, it had had to concede defeat, too. _Finally_.

_What'sToLiveFor?_

Money! Grinning like the loon that his alter ego was rumored to be, Kaito made his way back to the car that his mother had rented out. Their plan had gone off without a hitch! The various Kid appearances and sightings, along with various distributions of Kaitô Kid merchandise and clothes and whatever else could be sold were – indirectly, via a looooot of buffers and men-in-between, and only in the very end – getting _them_ the needed money (and some more) for further projects. It had indeed paid off that they had invested in shares of Kaitô Kid merchandise on the black market of Taiwan and China. What a lucrative investment that had been!

Kaito allowed a mischievous smirk to appear on his face once more. When he had heard the conversation Snake had had with that other man earlier that week, not only the order of "Kill everyone involved in that kidnapping." Had stuck in his head, but also another phrase had struck him as odd. "Kaitô Kid" in relation with "out of the picture" just felt wrong to him, somehow. The thoughts had been whirling around in his head ever since he'd overheard that conversation, up until he'd talked about it with his mother. They had held a war council of sorts, where they'd discussed plans and alternatives of what he wanted to be done.

So Snake was counting on the Kaitô Kid lying low now that the Kuroba family was out? Well, together they had decided that they would show them. Kaitô Kid would appear everywhere, and Kaito and his mother would make sure of that. After all, no one messed with his family and got away with it!

Out of that one discussion they'd had, one idea after another had sprung forth – they just kept coming like water out of a waterfall. And then the implementation thereof followed suit shortly after. In order to make the money flow, so to speak, the Kaitô had to appear in the people's minds and eyes more often than normal – then the merchandise appearing in tandem with the phantom thief would sell even more!

Truly, occupying the TV station had been a little over the top, however nobody ever claimed the thief to aim for less, to be frank. People would just shrug it off as another eccentricity of the well-known moonlighting thief and, well, the donation they'd given the TV station after the occupation had certainly helped matters along. They would most probably think of it as a prank done by the thief's fans more than anything else. Kaito wouldn't be the one to dissuade them from this notion. It was true in a certain way, after all. One could honestly say that he was the former Kaitô Kid's biggest fan.

Grinning, he rubbed his hands. Oh, this week he was going all out and having fun!

In short, he felt like nothing could ruin his good mood.

_What'sToLiveFor?_

The evening of that self-same day found Kaito composing his features into a carefully-crafted poker face better than the one he'd worn that day of the bombing taking place. Aoko had just shown him her findings of that day – and they'd been rather more intriguing than the ones from the days before.

For, inside the robot that she'd succeeded in breaking up had been a short scroll containing a letter – apparently written by his father. But that wasn't what made the blood in his veins freeze over in dread and his poker face to come up. Its content, on the other hand, was.

"_To whomever it may concern_," it read,

"_Congratulations on having come this far on your quest for immortality. Nonetheless, the stone's status goes – and will go – unchallenged, as will mine, as I regret saying._

_For, while you could have found this in my presence, you could only be reading this letter in my absence – and the only reason for that case which comes to mind is not a pleasant one. Thus, I have only one favor to ask of you: to give the second letter to my family to read. I shall thank you deeply for doing this for me, and speak a good word for whenever your time may come._

_As an illusionist, you will excuse my sense of humor, I hope._

_I am sorry to inform you that this is not only __a__ dead end in your search alone, but that this is __**the**__ dead end._

_I take a certain pride in saying that there is no such thing as immortality and that you are foolish to waste your life looking for it when it does not even exist._

_Mark my words, traveler, spend what is left of your days in a more valuable fashion – life is rich in choice, should you need it, and also in opportunities and occasions._

_Do not make yourself miss out._

_The Thief in White._"

It was alarming, Kaito absent-mindedly reflected, how quickly his mind was able to put together clues _after_ being presented with them on a silver tablet. He knew exactly why he wasn't cut out to be a detective, no matter how alike they seemed to think to onlookers. How he wished he'd figured all this out sooner, though! Everything was _right there_, after all! It had been right in front of his half-closed eyes all this time!

Upon seeing the three robots (_3_) that Aoko had shown him, his brain had started working. He'd seen these three letters before – somewhere. (_K, P2, P3_) And when she had presented him with the content of that one robot (_metal encasing…_) he'd felt like the universe had been playing one big joke on him all this time.

Suddenly, everything had clicked right into place, and even the letter's strange wording made sense.

_What'sToLiveFor?_

Exit detective. Enter murderer. Cue scream.

For his defense, Conan hadn't _exactly_ been in the same building when the murder happened this time. Together with Ran and Sonoko, he'd been looking at the art exhibition of a rather mediocre painter which coincidentally was located only one floor down and in the neighboring building from where the book presentation of the mystery novel that they'd originally come for would be held. For some reason or another, the presentation had been moved forward by about an hour, leaving them with nothing to do in the meantime, except going downstairs to take a look at the art exhibition that had apparently been opened that very same day, in the morning.

It was about one thirty in the afternoon when Kogoro had deemed it an appropriate time to go visit the local restrooms and afterwards crash the buffet upstairs in order to get some food. (And drinks. Free drinks, there.) He'd said as much to his daughter which had been followed by a quip of her own. The organizers of the book presentation had opened the buffet at about 1.15 already instead of after the presentation in order to make up for any inconvenience that the one-hour-delay of the presentation might have caused for the visitors.

The scream, of course, had come from that selfsame direction, about twenty-five minutes after the older Mouri had left. They'd been walking up the stairs already, because the presentation was to start soon, anyways. The scream, however, had made all of them flinch. No matter how many times they'd heard people scream because of yet another discovered murder, it wasn't something anybody ever got used to. It was a very recognizable sort of scream, too.

Upon hearing the scream, Conan immediately dashed off towards the first floor, with Ran and Sonoko close behind. The scream had come from the first floor – where the book presentation was to be held. He ran upstairs and around the corner – getting through security without even showing his invitation card. The security guard did not have a chance or the time to react when Conan had come and charged right into the room sans pause. Ran and Sonoko, however, got held up at the door: they were unfortunately a lot bigger than Conan and thusly far easier to stop. The boy briefly noticed his now-absent guardian's troubles and put it to the back of his mind. A murder was something more important than a missing guardian, especially when he knew they'd come after him as soon as they were let go again.

When he arrived at the scene, it was immediately apparent just who had died: it was the book author himself, who was sitting at the presentation desk, head resting upon the book he would present (the title of which was a very fitting description of what had occurred there: _A Murder For Lunch_) and leaning his hands, crossed in front of his body, on the desk just underneath his head, as though he had just prepared to take a nap there. The only disturbing elements in this picture were his eyes, which were opened wide in fear, staring at something far-off to the right of him. He was dead, apparently had already been declared so by someone competent, too, surprisingly enough.

As for the one having done that and now successfully keeping panic at bay, it wasn't Kogoro that Conan saw calming down the crowd. No, another person altogether had carefully secured the crime scene and was asking the on-looking people some questions along with taking notes. Photos had apparently already been taken as well, seeing as the person had a camera neatly tucked underneath his arm. Letting calculating calm take over his mind and his breath even out, the young boy looked around carefully, so as to get a more detailed first impression of the crime scene. Seeing nothing more out of the ordinary, his gaze swiveled back to the only other detective currently present.

It was a certain blond meitantei that they knew who was busy ordering people around and all in all organizing the usual procedure. Hakuba Saguru confidently stood amongst the people gathered and gave out directions and orders to make sure nobody panicked, that the police would be called and that the onlookers would stay calm and not disrupt the murder scene.

He knew that Hakuba would be able to handle the first few things that had to be taken care of in such a situation without his assistance. It helped Conan to concentrate on something else, for now: it was something which kept nagging at him – there was something _very_ _wrong_ _here_.

Looking around the room and the people inside once more, he figured it out fairly quickly, just as Ran and Sonoko made their way inside, accompanied by some men in uniform.

Mouri Kogoro was conspicuously absent from the scene.

_What'sToLiveFor?_

**AN:** meitantei = famous detective

Old Macdonald had a farm – translated into Japanese: Ichirosan no makiba de = usually the song's called "yukaina makiba", though: **ゆかいな牧****場** which roughly translates to something like "happy/pleasant farm".

What, the Kaitô Kid heist mentioned in this chapter happened two chapters before? Wow… seemed later than that. Then again, at the moment what happens within those few days is important plot-advancing action that the whole fanfiction simply couldn't do without.

So, what do you think of this chapter? 10.000 words – 17 pages, and all of this for you, dear readers! This monster was hell to write, though. The scream simply wouldn't come…

I have to add that the last snippet was set at the end of the week of Kaitô Kid appearances.

Anyone who can figure out what the three robots are all about and where Kaito heard all this before? (you WILL get to know more about this later, but well… nothing as good as a nice little mystery, right?)

A funny quote I found later, a few weeks after this chapter has been written: "The absent party is always to blame." ~Anonymous. Doesn't that just give you ideas now? :_D

What of this fanfiction? Please be as kind as to leave a review, dear reader! I would be honored and happy as could be!

**THE NEXT CHAPTER WILL BE OUT ON THE 17.01.2013!**


	9. Staring At Emotion In The Light Of Day

_Staring At Emotion In The Light Of Day_

**Disclaimer**: Don't own either DC or MK! Enjoy this next installment of my fan fiction!

**AN**: Yes, various time-jumps between the different POV-snippets again; however the snippets themselves are written in the correct time line (mostly). Tsumari (In other words): The snippets written from Kaito's POV are in the correct order; the ones written from any other POV are in their correct order, as well. However, atm, events in Kaito's POV snippets are happening about a day or two or three before the murder of the book presenter occurs. Akako's snippets are happening earlier than that, too.

I hope that this cleared everything up and that you're not getting too confused by the various ways my mind works, dear readers!

_StaringAtEmotionInTheLightOfDay_

Conan was slowly walking around the room, ending up in front of the table where the corpse had sat. The policemen – a very arrogant-looking inspector and his troupe hadn't taken too long to appear on scene at all – had already taken pictures of the crime scene and removed the corpse. When asked, he'd told Conan that Megure-keibu was very busy with a huge case nowadays. Needless to say, Conan became curious; but he'd had to stave off his curiosity for a little while longer, the murder case of the author taking precedence over anything else at the moment.

Apparently the author had lain directly on his book, with his arms acting as a cushion for his head. The head had pointed – ah right, it'd been to the author's right hand side that it had looked. The book itself was opened to a seemingly arbitrary page; it was the opening page of chapter five that the author had intended to read to the public later on. He had to have been practicing, then. Hakuba had done an excellent job at keeping panic at bay and the people inside the room from slipping out and vice versa.

This, nevertheless, wasn't the most pressing issue in the shrunken detective's mind. He'd already asked Ran and Sonoko if they'd seen the elder Mouri or if they knew where he could have gone, but that had turned up nothing yet. They had offered to go and ask the staff at the buffet about him and had promptly left him alone at the crime scene.

The police were by then asking the people who had known the victim personally. Seeing as they needed to interrogate every person individually, they had gone into the rooms adjacent to the presentation hall. The problem with those was that the inspector – as arrogant as Conan's first impression of him was – immediately upon finding out their desire to involve themselves even more, forbid any underage "assistants" from entering the rooms, no matter whose assistants those happen to be or what ties they might have to the police, leaving Hakuba as well as Conan outside.

As humiliating as that experience had turned out to be (the inspector hadn't kept from picking up Conan by the neck-end of his sweater and bodily shove him out), it was still okay, though. Conan knew at least one member of this particular group of policemen who would be able to fill him in on anything interesting happening within those rooms afterwards.

Meanwhile, he was slowly walking around to get a look at the bigger picture, or, rather, the measurements of the room. Could someone have poisoned the author from a distance without anyone noticing? It seemed that the six people who had personally known the author had all been within the room ever since the author had come in; he'd still been alive then, of course. What could have been poisoned to have him have ingested it while practicing his reading?

"Conan-kun!" He turned around, successfully having been broken out of his musings by Ran's shout. She was running towards him.

"Did you find anything, Ran-neechan?" The empathic shaking of her head verified what he'd thought. Kogoro Mouri wasn't just absent. He was obviously missing, and had been for a while.

"The members of the buffet staff told us that they had only seen him for a bit; no longer than five, ten minutes at most. They said he went in the direction of the toilets after having gone to the buffet."

While Conan digested this, Ran looked around in askance. The lack of some of the policemen seemed to have confused her, so Conan explained their absence to her.

"The inspector wanted to question the suspects, so he and some of the policemen went in there." He pointed towards the smaller rooms. The small boy blinked. Where had Hakuba gone in the meantime?

"Neee? Do you know where Hakuba-niichan has gone?" he directed an innocent gaze towards the girl.

"He was just stepping outside when I entered the room."

Conan opened his mouth. Another scream – more muffled, definitely shorter and by far more familiar than the first one – interrupted whatever Conan had been about to say next.

_StaringAtEmotionInTheLightOfDay_

"_To whomever it may concern_," the mysterious letter read,

"_Congratulations on having come this far on your quest for immortality. Nonetheless, the stone's status goes – and will go – unchallenged, as will mine, as I regret saying._

_For, while you could have found this in my presence, you could only be reading this letter in my absence – and the only reason for that case which comes to mind is not a pleasant one. Thus, I have only one favor to ask of you: to give the second letter to my family to read. I shall thank you deeply for doing this for me, and speak a good word for whenever your time may come._

_As an illusionist, you will excuse my sense of humor, I hope._

_I am sorry to inform you that this is not only __a__ dead end in your search alone, but that this is __**the**__ dead end._

_I take a certain pride in saying that there is no such thing as immortality and that you are foolish to waste your life looking for it when it does not even exist._

_Mark my words, traveler, spend what is left of your days in a more valuable fashion – life is rich in choice, should you need it, and also in opportunities and occasions._

_Do not make yourself miss out._

_The Thief in White._"

She had read this one letter more than two dozen times already – she couldn't get over the fact that she was missing something vital here, besides the obvious – and she knew that Kaito would finally be forced to explain _everything_ to her this time. Aoko had had one whole afternoon to get used to the idea of it being true – that Kaito's father had indeed been wandering around at night as "Kaitô Kid" and that now Kaito was doing the very same thing, for whatever reasons. It was obvious from the signature. Why else would he sign with "The Thief in White"? Who else did she know that went stealing while wearing white?

From there it only went to figure that his son would follow in his steps. Kaito adored his father – to that day still. Would there really be anything else that he was doing except to follow the famous magician? Contemplating her conclusion, she found that she couldn't explain away the facts. Everything pointed right there. That made her backtrack her steps and pause.

Why on earth would she want to explain them away? She was sure that her logic was sound. And then she knew why. He was her friend – she just didn't want to see what by then had had to have become another part of him. You couldn't go stealing at night without it somehow becoming an integrate part of your personality, however faint the traces were. And, to be honest, however abstruse it might seem, the suspicion had been there all along, hadn't it?

Were it any different, why would she feel this calm now? A strange sense of serenity and a feeling of finally being the one in-control had overtaken her a few moments after having read the letter for the first time. It was weird, really. She hadn't ever felt this way before and yet… and yet… it all made almost too much sense to her. As though the reasons for her childhood friend being Kid – even though she hadn't heard them yet – were right all along. As though he hadn't stolen a thing, in truth. As though he hadn't harmed a single person.

The brown-haired girl, of course, knew he'd harmed a lot of people, her included, in his endeavor to become a phantom thief. He'd – as one unwelcome side effect – stolen from them a lot of time that she could have spent together with her father. It was him who had given all those policemen lots of trouble and unnecessary headaches, making them run across rooftops and chase him to the world's end, without them ever coming close to catching him. Kaitô Kid had orchestrated all of the more or less pointless chases that he called heists. He'd purloined every item he set eyes on, uncountable diamonds, rubies and other jewels and valuable statues and among other goods.

Then why…?

Really, she couldn't understand herself sometimes. There it was, obvious proof that Kaito – _her childhood friend_ _Kaito_ – was the civilian identity of Kaitô Kid. (and wasn't she glad that Hakuba wasn't around, right then? He'd most probably have said "Told you so" with a smug grin. Or, if he hadn't said so out loud, it would have been exceedingly obvious in his demeanor.) And yet,…

To say that she had felt reluctant in confronting him with it when he had read the letter would have been an understatement. There hadn't really been a better moment than that, and still… she hesitated. If he was such an awful thief, then it shouldn't have been a problem, right?

Then why was it…?

How come she couldn't just come out and ask him flat out just what he was thinking, gallivanting with beautiful women and pilfering other people's things! Why couldn't she make him justify himself and give her his reasons for stealing? Why did she hesitate? She didn't know the answer to that question. What she did know was that – be it in his civilian persona or his alter ego – he made her mad. Exorbitantly so. Whether he intended for her temper to rise or not, usually he was the reason she was angry. The easiest outlet for her anger was him, normally, as well, though this time it appeared to be different.

She would be justified, she knew, in demanding him to explain himself to her. Aoko had waited long enough, hadn't she? More than a week ago, she'd been taken in that kidnapping that they'd orchestrated on their own – they never had counted on her joining them in that endeavor, after all! A week's worth of patience was wearing thin now. She had enough. And still…

Why did she feel so much like she should wait for him to tell her in his own time, instead?

_StaringAtEmotionInTheLightOfDay_

Chikage was sure that this letter had been written by her late husband, probably even shortly before his death. Yes, that "t" was tilted a little to the left, wasn't it? He'd only started doing so about half a year before… Her eyes closed of their own accord. She'd been so very sure that she was over it already. Over his death. His murder. His continuous absence. Seeing this letter; this document – this certificate of his existence, really; holding it in hands and reading it (twice; she couldn't help herself) just brought back what she missed. Oh, naturally she still missed him. Moving his things was easy. Bombing their home was easy; compared to this… torture. It was painful. A very uncomfortable feeling had started spreading from her toes up to her head all the way through her body once she'd been presented with this letter.

What was it about written letters and sentences and _words_ that made them magical? Wasn't it the same with runes? They held a certain magic within themselves, absolving people of guilt and speaking curses and protecting and attacking people with dark intents. Immortality. What a fanciful term for something so foolish. Undoing death. Cheating death. Escaping death. Everybody had to die some day. But hadn't her husband already spoken of this "_cursed dream"_ sometime before?

Yes, she could dimly remember him having mentioned something along those lines. However, she'd long since forgotten what exactly he'd told her and what they'd been talking about back then. Nevertheless, the letter's content only reaffirmed what she'd already thought, herself. He was dead. Long gone. Absent from their lives for an indeterminable amount of time. She allowed a wry smile to graze her lips at that. Phrased like this, it almost seemed as though he'd wandered off on a journey.

Chikage was curious about that second letter that was mentioned in this one, though she left the decision of when to open it to the current "man of the house". With a look, she conveyed these feelings to her son once he sought her out and their eyes met. A short nod answered her. His decision. Closing her eyes once more, she drew back a little and noiselessly slipped out of the room, in search of something solid that she could hold onto without imposing on the young couple resolving their problems in the middle of the hut's living room. Her legs brought her with a confident gait towards one of the older, more ornate carton boxes in one of the corners of the bedroom.

Without hesitation and unnecessary movements, she opened one and reached in. Pulling out a smallish package that probably wouldn't be missed even if her son knew it was there, she went into the kitchen. She'd be left alone for now. Most probably, her son never even dared touch it, never mind open it to see its content. The script on it would prevent him from doing so.

"To my darling Chikage," it read in the most peculiar handwriting. Some time spent with browsing through their old love letters would give her some kind of peace, at least.

_StaringAtEmotionInTheLightOfDay_

The first thought that entered his brain was that something was wrong. It was dark and he couldn't move. The feeling was not unlike having a few layers of plastic tape wrapped around him. Dizzy, he tried opening his eyes. Everything swam in front of him. It threatened to turn into the wrong direction… Oh, that was not such a good idea at that very moment, was it? Good, let's close them again.

His head ached; he knew he hadn't drunk anything yet. Or had he? No. There had been that buffet. And that book reading that his daughter and the freeloader had dragged him to. After that buffet he'd gone to the toilet, hadn't he? Ah right. And then… his head threatened to burst. A muffled groan escaped him. Muffled? … Ah. What on earth was going on?

When he heard high heels come towards him through the door, he decided to produce something louder than a groan. That halted them in their tracks. The door was knocked on twice, shortly thereafter opened. A girly scream tore through the silence and almost split his ears as well as his head into two.

_StaringAtEmotionInTheLightOfDay_

He remembered. Of course, he'd remember, once presented with all the clues. The inscription on his father's grave came to him as though he'd been there only a week ago. Ah. A short pause in his train of thoughts followed. It had been last week that he'd gone there, hadn't it? Or was it two weeks ago? Time seemed to blur once you had left home for somewhere else. So much had been going on that he couldn't be too sure if he was correct in his assumption that that day was a Thursday, even. But he knew that he'd visited the grave just before he'd staged that Kid heist and the kidnapping incident. His memory supplied the rest.

"Kuroba Toichi", it had read, carved into the dark-colored stone on top of the grave.

"Loosening my hold on real human life, I become smaller,

Paling in the light of the darkest room,

Posthumously, my regards to the metal encasing me.

Starting out as a magician with 3 kyû, I now leave you to figure out its meaning, for life is fickle, indeed. 39, my family."

The meaning of most of it was clear to Kaito, now. Still holding almost reverently onto the letter that Aoko had given him just a few moments before, he reflected what all those findings could mean. K – that was obviously one of the robots. "Kuroba Toichi" was written at the very beginning, and if one started counting it as line zero, then the "K" could be deduced from there. The second line could just be a hint towards the robots: they are said to have no human life whatsoever in them and they were noticeably smaller than the average human being.

The "darkest room" obviously had been the secret room in their old house: it being the only room without any windows. Therein lay the second clue: the starting letter of line "2" is a "P"; this led to "P2", the second robot. "P3" was obviously referred to in the next line. The "metal encasing me" obviously meant that the "persona" of this poem was not a real person, but rather the letter that was within the robot. Or, the letters, for there had to be more than one, if one went with what it said in the first one they'd read.

The number, "3", most probably meant that there were three letters to be found in total. Somehow, Kaito wasn't sure if he truly wanted to find them and solve the mystery. Looking up, his eyes connected with his mother's. Oh, so she left it to him to find out about the other letters? With a distractedness that he hadn't felt in ages his eyes followed her sad form out of the room. Sad. She had probably never thought that her husband would have left her more than what she'd already unearthed, had she? This… message… had come quite unexpectedly, leaving both of them floating in the air with nothing to hold onto and having them all of a sudden deal with long-lost memories and emotions anew that they had thought they'd already coped with splendidly the first time around.

It had come as a shock to both of them, that was for sure. This letter had not only torn open old wounds, no, it had ploughed through them as though they were mere fields of emotions, to be handled at its earliest convenience, yet not important anyways. The question of "why" was left, glaring at him from within those words.

He took a breath and looked up, once more, only to stare into impossibly blue eyes full of untold truths and suspicions. His own grew wide. Of course. This letter was probably the catalyst for her to think some of those suspicions were true, if she hadn't already made up her mind after all those disguises that he'd put on. Right. Without averting his eyes, he sunk his head a little. Kaito wasn't sure what to say, what to tell her now. It would probably be better for her to take the first step. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jii-chan slipping out of the room. He'd unobtrusively stood at the door to the kitchen, watching them, and now apparently judged it better to absent himself from the situation. Kaito'd have to tell him about the letter later. Or had Aoko already done that?

_StaringAtEmotionInTheLightOfDay_

The words on another letter entirely were creating just the same kind of reaction – or rather, a very different one – in the Head of the Kaitô Kid Task Force's office. The task force members were studiously avoiding that very room, fearing the inspector-in-charge possibly going on a warpath again. They were confused. None of them could make head or tails of what had happened to their inspector in the days shortly after the kidnapping.

They simply didn't know what to make of the sudden silence that had befallen the room that he was in. He'd raged and raged ever since his daughter had been abducted. And then, all of a sudden, it had stopped. Just like that. That had happened a few days ago.

Naturally, none of them had noticed a certain someone visiting the head of the Task Force; in all the commotion and worry they'd been in, no one had paid any heed to the people constantly entering and exiting the inspector's office. Partly reassuring him, partly just being there to be shouted at and partly to give him any news that might seem promising.

Their heads had swiveled around at the first mention of a Kaitô Kid sighting; when those sightings multiplied within the day, they got ever more confused. The inspector had only told them to send out people should it be anything more serious, like the real Kaitô Kid appearing and actually stealing something. He wouldn't do so without giving them a notice beforehand, would he now? Moreover, did Kaitô Kid's face appearing everywhere constitute as serious? Needless to say, everyone in the Kaitô Kid Task Force left that week of Kaitô Kid reappearances far more befuddled than they'd ever been.

And when, after that week of mayhem, their boss came out of his office looking determined and telling them what he was intending to do, they simply accepted it and went with his plan. It was at least some kind of action that they could take. After all, wasn't that the thief's well-known signature underneath that heist note?

_StaringAtEmotionInTheLightOfDay_

When they arrived at the toilets – the direction where the scream had come from – they found out that Kogoro Mouri had been found. Tied up, with a gag and in his underwear, he'd been left for someone unassuming to find in the broom closet right beside the toilets. Frankly, it looked as though he'd been pranked. Something about this scene was familiar, though. Conan had the solution to this almost in his grasp. He'd seen this before, hadn't he? Somewhere…

Glancing up, he saw that Hakuba had come with them to the toilets. Was that the light or was the blond detective looking a tad pale? And where was the inspector? Ah, there he came.

"Ah-ha! I knew it!" Huh? "Gentlemen, take pictures, please. This is evidence." Both eyebrows went up at that. Evidence?

"The case has been solved!" What? Conan's brain was running on automatic at that moment, his thoughts a mile a minute. The case had been solved?

"Do you know who murdered the author?", Sonoko was the one to voice one of Conan's questions.

"Yes, of course! Ladies and Gentlemen, the perpetrator turned herself in just about five minutes ago. The case is closed. Thank you." Satisfied, the inspector turned around and walked back towards the hall where the reading had been scheduled.

_What?!_

_StaringAtEmotionInTheLightOfDay_

In another part of the city, Jodie Santemillion was left alone to muse about the cases that the FBI was busy with nowadays. The blonde considered herself a rational human being. She knew that the earth went around the sun and that usually every event had a logical explanation behind it. That was why it threw her for a loop when – right after that disastrous bombing and the consequent abduction of the Kurobas – Kaitô Kid had staged a week filled with appearances of himself all over Tokyo.

There was no doubt in her mind left that it had to have been the phantom thief himself who had organized and managed the distribution of merchandise, clothes and other miscellaneous items all over the city. It wasn't as though the companies had agreed in advance to do so at the same time. (she'd verified that with at least four of them earlier. They'd all told her some "unknown benefactor" had ordered all those items and things to be displayed and sold at that and that time on that and that date exactly.)

Wasn't it also Kid who had given them that brown bag with these top-secret documents? They had only been able to make any headway towards the bigger picture with those; had they not been given them at that exact moment, they wouldn't have been able to apprehend those agents and gather all this invaluable information. Wherever he had found that, it was doubtlessly one of his more rational actions when considering recent developments. Or was it even Kaitô Kid who'd organized all those appearances of the Kaitô Kid paraphernalia and merchandise in the city?

She huffed. Naturally it had to be that thief. But what could he possibly gain from those? Jodie shook her head. The woman knew that she wouldn't be able to get any closer to the answer to her questions by sitting around and thinking on them. She opened her laptop and looked into her email account. Maybe some of her acquaintances had some news on her most recent troubles.

A new email awaited her. Oh. It was about Kaitô Kid. He'd even attached a newspaper article. Bemused, she blinked. Twice. What on earth…?

_StaringAtEmotionInTheLightOfDay_

Kaito was being held, once again. Honestly, he already couldn't count how many times that had happened in the last few days on one hand and he was glad about that, too. It grew more and more familiar, the more and more often it happened. Aoko was becoming the pillar he could lean on… something that he'd considered the most dangerous thing to happen only such a short time ago. And now… look at where he was. It was still dangerous, but having her right there, with them, he thought was the safest place for her to be – not the sanest, no. Oh, it was by far not the sanest place to be. Especially if one took into consideration just how many times his life had been shaken around lately.

Still, it was better to have her here, half-wrapped around him. He could get used to this, his mind supplied helpfully. But first, first she'd need to know. Sighing, he made his arms let go of her and fall to the ground. The two of them put a little distance between themselves, still embracing, still on the floor, but looking straight into each other's face, into each other's eyes. Yes, that had been a letter written by his father, his eyes seemed to say. His mouth, on the other hand, didn't even know where to start. It opened of its own accord once. Twice. Then it stayed like that.

_StaringAtEmotionInTheLightOfDay_

While he was fumbling for words – truly a one-time thing considering just who she was dealing with – she waited. She knew her resolution of having him tell her because he wanted to. Nonetheless this did not make things any easier. Aoko was not the most patient person to be around. The black-haired girl did not like waiting at all. When his mouth had stayed slightly open for a bit of time, she made her move.

"It was him, wasn't it?" he was listening intently to what she had to say. "Kaitô Kid." A cautious nod. What was the point in lying? She closed her eyes for a moment, processing that.

"And now you are…" Opening her eyes, she didn't know how to go on. He was… Kaito was…

Another nod – slower than the last, more weary and less cautious – followed the unspoken, unfinished question.

He hadn't outright lied to her. Well, he hadn't outright told the truth, either, but in all this time – ever since the kidnapping – he hadn't lied to her. Kaito had refrained from telling her everything that was going on, yes, even going so far as to deny her having anything to do with what was going on, but he'd only ever omitted the truth. Was that lying? She didn't know.

The magician _had_ lied to her while they were at school, when everything had been normal and nothing had gone crazy like things tended to do at that moment. The girl didn't know what to think about that. She'd been worried about him lately, too, hadn't she? Hakuba had even helped her… Hakuba. He'd known, hadn't he? How had he known? Giving Kaito another look, she thrust that thought aside. It wasn't important now. More important was if Kaito was willing to trust her.

She didn't know what was going on, what big thing they were involved in, but if it was as big as to make the Kurobas kidnap themselves, then… why had they not gone to the police yet? They had set up a safe house – more than one, the first flat they slept in counted as well, - and for what purpose? Their house had been bombed, why? Just how big was that thing they were involved in?

"Did you tell Otou-san?" A shake of the head. "Why not? He could have helped you! You could have – I don't know, done something better than kidnap yourselves!" Aoko got up, "You could have gone to the police! Aren't they the ones who are supposed to keep people safe?"

'Why was your house bombed' wanted to slip out, too, but she considered the questions that she'd already fired off at her poor childhood friend enough for the time being. By this time, she was standing in front of him, having cut herself off to try and get some answers out of him. When he didn't say anything, she continued, in a more quiet voice.

"I'm not stupid, Kaito. I defended you in front of Hakuba, I defended you in front of Otou-san. I don't want to know why you became the Kaitô Kid right now; I want to know why you didn't go to Otou-san or anybody from the police." The brunette was looking more and more forlorn by the minute to her eyes. Her body was shaking, her lips trembling in a last ditch effort at keeping her composure.

His eyes went wide. A blink of the eye and he was standing, as well, and taking her into his arms. She only had one second to look startled. The roles were reversed now, were they? For the longest time, none of them spoke. Then she let go and tears spilled down her cheeks.

_StaringAtEmotionInTheLightOfDay_

"I…" her arms tightened around his. All the while, she was crying silently. A sigh. "Oh dear. We're right a mess, aren't we?" Another sigh. "I didn't go to your father because I knew he couldn't help." When she made a protesting noise, he hushed her gently. "I thought this through. Before our house was bombed, I got a warning." His hands were carding through her hair, carefully separating one lock from the other. The motion was intended to calm her down, as well as himself. It gave his hands something to do while he thought about how to phrase what he wanted to say.

"I could have gone to your father then. But the warning was on short notice. And he is no bomb expert." Truly, it had been on short notice, hadn't it? They'd had only a few days to prepare. Had he gotten her father involved, they'd have had far more red tape to deal with. Also, they would have been back to square one: Snake knew that the Kuroba family was linked to Kaitô Kid and would have been free to act on that knowledge in whichever way he pleased.

None of them were bomb experts, her father least of all. Nakamori-keibu knew how to chase after phantom thieves and old rivalries. To throw a bomb into the equation would have made everything more difficult. But how to explain…?

"I… the man who bombed our house… he is a known adversary of Kaitô Kid's. He… is scrupulous and dangerous. I didn't become Kaitô Kid, but I stayed Kaitô Kid because of him." She gazed up at him, a bit confused but listening intently.

He paused shortly, looking back into those deep, deep blue eyes. Kaito had to gulp before going on. "It's… it's a long story." Her answer came shooting out of her mouth before she'd even tought about it and before he'd considered exactly how he'd tell her what had been going on with Kid. "I've got some time." Almost shyly her lips formed a hesitant smile, probably meant to reassure him.

Ah, when had he ever been able to resist her?

_StaringAtEmotionInTheLightOfDay_

They'd been ushered out as soon as possible. Conan wasn't the only one who was displeased at that, although Hakuba had gone away with the excuse of some "Baachan waiting for him" somewhere close shortly thereafter. A frown crossed the young boy's face. Why would the murderer hand herself over just like that? The story that the police had provided them with was that "Her guilty conscience had overwhelmed her – she hadn't been able to hold it in any more and handed herself over to the police."

Just like that. She'd gotten herself arrested – and would be in prison for at least the next five years, just like that. Was it only him or had this murder seemed a tad too easy to solve?

Well, standing outside of the building – especially since it threatened to rain sometime soon – wasn't going to help matters any, was it? They signaled for a taxi on Ran's prompting and left the event more confused than ever. The elder Mouri had been kept behind by the police – for questioning – so it was Sonoko, Ran and him in the car. Since the shrunken detective won't get any closer towards the solution of this mystery any time soon, he decided to put it aside for now. He'd be sure to question Ran's father about the murder – and his part in it – later.

Questioning Ran's father later, it turned out, however, hadn't been needed at all. The murder and its subsequent solution were apparently deemed newsworthy, and the three of them (Sonoko had decided to stay for dinner) watched as the mystery was unfolded in front of them.

The headlines?

"Kaitô Kid, A Killer?"

_StaringAtEmotionInTheLightOfDay_

**AN:** Woooooooooooooow… the last update was on December 24th, 2012?! That was a looong break! I am deeply sorry, dear readers, for having left you hanging this long!

I have to admit, too, that I cut this installment slightly short – I wanted to update more than I wanted to continue struggling with the end snippets of this chapter – but, therefore, the next chapter is going to be a tad longer than this one; so you've got something to look forward to, at least! ;_)

Up until now I have had to deal with a variety of life's … worse situations, for lack of a better word, and those have thrown me for quite a loop in the last two years or so… I have had the doubtful pleasure of experiencing the worst kind of writer's block – the one where all the creativity just goes "poof!" and the muses go into hiding – and had to find my way back into writing once more, before I was confident enough to finally put online the next chapter of this story.

I had to cope with nightmares for longer than I was comfortable with, on top of a lowered feeling of security and comfort in my own four walls. I valiantly refuse to believe that I "attracted this kind of thing by thinking about murder mysteries/mystery stories", which my brain told me to believe for quite a while after a rather terrible event happened in my life.

Thus, I hope you can excuse me having said "this will be out in January". I learned from that: I won't give any predictions about when a chapter might come online again; you'll just have to be surprised when they do. ;_)

I did cajole my muses out of hiding, but I cannot promise it will be this story's next chapter I shall be working on next; they are apparently a little bit pickier than they were before I left for my hiatus…

Nevertheless, by putting this chapter online, I can finally assure you with certainty that this fanfiction is NOT DEAD, nor will I ever put anything online that I won't finish. :_D And that is already something, don't you think?

In any case, thank you for reading! I hope you liked this newest installment of _We Are Golden_ and that you're looking forward to what I'll be coming up with next as much as I am!


	10. I Was Running

_I was running from the things that you'd say_

**Disclaimer**: Don't own either DC or MK! Enjoy the story!

**AN:** Don't mind if you get confused a little with this chapter… it was written a bit unstructured. The overall timeline won't be altered, though. The snippets in _cursive_ happen about at the same time as the murder did (the murder just wanted to be written into an earlier chapter, is all), excepting the one in Hakuba's part. That one should be clear by itself, though. So, Kaito's timeline has finally caught up! (or, well, at least the cursive snippets have…) :_D *happy author*

For you dear readers' better comprehension, it looks a little like this in this chapter (in terms of who's the fastest in the timeline):

- Hakuba

- Conan

-Kaito

-Nakamori

Just to make this clear: personally, I am a huuuge fan of dead languages, literature and history. However, I just love playing around with the stereotypes sometimes… ;_D

Also, here there shall be _magic_!

Have fun reading!

_I was running from the things that you'd say_

_He was sitting in a café that he recognized from somewhere. Where had he seen those seats before? The niche that he was sitting in especially seemed familiar. A coffee was placed on the table in front of him. His laptop was open and running to his right. A thank you escaped his mouth, before he turned his head to the right, to stare out the window. The café was located on the first floor of some building adjacent to a busy street that was filling up with business men and students alike. The sun proclaimed a late evening. Where was he?_

_All of a sudden, someone was getting into the seat opposite of him. He immediately protested, "Er, excuse me! That seat is res-" but then he saw just who it was who'd gotten comfortable right in front of his eyes, costume, hat and all. The shadow that the top hat threw down naturally obscured any features, making only the monocle visible. It glinted, the shine of the outside lights reflecting off of it and with the slightest hand movement, the man greeted him cheerily with his trademarked grin plastered all over his face. The man was dumbfounded. None of them spoke for a while._

_It became decidedly surreal as the waitress came and took the thief's order as though nothing was amiss. That, at last, brought him out of his stupor. He placed his elbows on the table, interlocked his fingers and leaned his chin on his hands. Calmly, he regarded the white-clad mystery sitting tauntingly in front of him, evaluated him. The larcenist had in the meantime assumed a less threatening grin, smaller and less blinding in its intensity, yet it did not make it any easier to see his face. The ever-present shadows appeared to mock him with knowledge that he did not yet have._

"_Why?" that was all he got out at first, his thoughts a jumbling mess at the moment. The magician seemed to raise an eyebrow in askance. The grin was toned down to a mere smile, questioning and smug all at once. Patiently, he waited for the man to sort out what he wanted to know and began stirring the hot chocolate that he'd been given._

_Once he'd ordered his thoughts somewhat, he ploughed on. "Why did you kidnap the Kurobas?" For that was all that he'd been able to think about once he'd heard about Snake's fatal failure of a plan. The thief hadn't had anything to gain from kidnapping them, had he? To him, it was obvious that it had to have been the thief who'd kidnapped them – no one else knew that Snake "knew" the larcenist's "real name" and cared about those that the ex-diamond-thief held under suspicion of belonging to the thief's family._

_He'd been told the scheme – and its results (or would that be consequences?) – afterwards, once the thief had started to magically make his name and figure appear everywhere. To be honest, it had been a stupid plan from the very start. Not that his opinion had ever mattered when it came to Snake's plans or schemes; Jackal had, after all, still a higher position in the hierarchy than him._

_Nonetheless, what interested him at that very instant was why the thief had done it. Or did he have someone else do it for him? Some underdog criminal that the Organization hadn't cared to put tabs on would have been the perfect person for the job. After all, the Kaitô Kid couldn't have organized a heist the evening before and then be aware of the bomb so much as to be able to get out the inhabitants of the Kuroba house just in time for the bomb to detonate and not harm anyone in the vicinity, could he now?_

_Deep in thought, he regarded the person sitting opposite of him. The magician-thief still hadn't answered, but begun to play with his spoon a bit; plunging it into his hot chocolate and having a small fork come up. At that, the thief looked rather ridiculously confused for a second, before he put it back into the cup and pulled out a spoon, once more._

_To be able to do all those things in a time span this short would have taken an inordinately big amount of time and planning, considering that he'd been targeted at the heist again, wouldn't it? Snake had boasted a bit too much about almost having caught the white pest this time around – with one of his bullets, of course – for it not to have made it to his ears._

_Certainly, the thief couldn't have done it all by himself, could he?_

_And then to have planned something like that week of Kaitô Kid appearances more or less directly following that kidnapping… that wouldn't have been possible for a single person alone. Then again, he'd heard before that the phantom thief had an assistant. But even for two it would have been nigh to impossible to do all that: the preparation, never mind the execution of all those schemes would have taken a mindboggling amount of time and effort. He focused his gaze on the laptop. The site that had been opened was one of his favorites at Kaitô Kid heists, the one about famous diamonds and other gems, probable future targets of the thief._

_Or maybe, the thief had been planning all this for a long time already. When was it again, the date of the day that the ex-diamond-thief had blundered and led Kid into the home of one of the higher-ups? _

_That was when he redirected his gaze towards the person in question and noticed something else that was wrong with this scene. The thief appeared to fade ever so slightly. The edges of his outfit became blurry bit by bit, until all that he was left with was the impression that the other man was silently laughing at him, the grin tauntingly close, if he just could reach out with his hands across the table. But he wasn't able to do anything as his whole view grew blurred; the white-clad nuisance that everyone was focused on disappearing into nothing as black swallowed his vision._

He slowly became aware that he was lying on something. Upon opening his eyes, he saw that it was his bed and that he'd apparently just woken up. Slowly, his ears picked up on the sound of his ringing alarm clock. Right. It was morning and he should get up. Pulling his blanket off his person, he sat up. He quickly located his slippers on the floor. It was only once he put them on that he realized that all through the dream, the thief hadn't said a word. Kaitô Kid had sat right in front of him, doing magic tricks and not once uttered a word, neither to prove him right nor wrong. Putting his head into his hands, he groaned aloud. Some people said that dreams would help with figuring out things, but he hadn't actually found out anything at all had he? Back to square one it was.

_I was running from the things that you'd say_

Conan didn't know what to do. That was no first to him, he frequently found himself in situations that he had to improvise in, but this time it certainly seemed as though his hands were tied. The case of Kid's framing – for it definitely had not been the thief who had orchestrated the murder of that author – was a tough one. The murderer, a young woman by the name of Sakamoto Noemi, had been a friend of the victim. There was no doubt that she was the murderer, seeing as all the evidence pointed towards her, the police had definite proof that it was her and she'd confessed the crime almost immediately in front of witnesses at the crime scene, and then again at the police station.

The only thing that struck the miniature detective as slightly odd was the sloppiness with which the murder had been executed. It goes without saying that there are, indeed, murders which are done sloppily and in a messy way, with lots of the evidence pointing towards the murderer, some of them even with the killer unconsciously helping the police along. When Ran had gone with him to the police station to give them her statement, the shrunken detective had told Satou-keiji that Kogoro had asked him to bring him the case file for a quick review and thus had been able to go over the facts once more in the relative safety of a staircase adjacent to Division One's open bureaus. To Conan, it seemed as though the woman had had a pretty good plan, but had butchered it to pieces the moment that she'd been interviewed.

That didn't make sense. Why go through all that planning – she'd considered the time, the people in the room and created herself a decent alibi – when you'd confess the crime the first moment you were asked superficial things about it?

And then came the weirdest part of all this: once she'd confessed, she'd told the police that Kaitô Kid had ordered her to do it, mentioning how he'd impersonated Mouri Kogoro to see if the implementation of the plan was going alright. Apparently he'd left the scene once he knew that everything had been prepared: the tip of the pencil that the author had been given had been poisoned and neither the author nor anybody else had been aware of the scheme.

The author had the habit of chewing on said tip for stress release, a habit that pretty much everyone around the author had been aware of. Once she'd seen herself in "safety", so to speak, the woman had nervously told the police everything that had apparently been going on behind the scenes. Unfortunately for the victim, that had been _after_ the murder had happened.

Yeah, right. As if Kaitô Kid's first rule wasn't "No one gets hurt". Nevertheless, the phantom thief hadn't responded to the framing, an action that had thrown everyone for a loop. He'd always written something to the newspapers or to his Task Force or done something directly at the murder scenes whenever his name and reputation had been on the line, hadn't he?

That was why the police had proceeded to have an intern squabble about his involvement in the murder, one which was still not resolved, if the shouting in the room next to the stairwell where Conan had hidden himself was anything to go by. That was Nakamouri-keibu's voice, wasn't it?

Deeming it a suitable time to go back and maybe have some of his questions answered, the detective opened the door and entered the room.

_I was running from the things that you'd say_

_The sound of the plane starting was like a melody in his ears. A distinct sound of the running motor mixed into the chatter of last-minute conversations before the plane departed from the gate. He glanced to his right side neighbor, then to his left, out the window. The excitement that travel brought mightn't have been dimmed had there not been this underlying tension there that he couldn't seem to make disappear, no matter what he did. A blink, then the gate was left far behind. The plane rolled towards the starting position. His heart started beating a bit faster. This was it, then._

_I was running from the things that you'd say_

About two days after his confession to Aoko had the two of them sitting in the living room once more, the second and third robot in front of them. His mother had gone out to do some shopping together with the old man and been giving him weird looks all the time, ever since she'd vacated the field to let the two of them have a moment. Those looks could be translated easily in his head: they were urging him to open the second letter "to the family"; she didn't demand him to do it verbally, though the message had been clear. Chikage was just as insatiably curious – and just as devastated – as he was by the recent turn of events.

There it was, to his right hand side on the floor, proof of his father's last words to whomever the late magician had thought would find the letter. Did he really want to see what his father's last words to his family had been? Would he be able to get up the courage to read it once he was holding the letter in his hands? It would be the last thing that he'd ever see of his father's legacy. Goosebumps spread from his neck all over his spine.

His throat closed up. He gulped to get the knot out of his windpipe. His left hand was captured in her hand, and pressed lightly. She'd be there all the way. Kaito tried to smile for Aoko and failed only slightly – she'd taken the revelation of him being the long sought-after gentleman thief with much, muuuuch more serenity and calm acceptance than he'd thought she would. Then again, she hadn't yet seen him in action and known just who it was that was doing all those tricks and evading the police. What would she say once that would happen? Oh, he doubted she'd fully realized the implications and consequences of his revelation to her… No, stop. The young magician honestly didn't want to think about that right now. So, back to the matter at hand.

The robot was exactly like the other one, except for the inscription on its forehead: P2, it said. Aoko had butchered the robot with a "K" on it those few days ago, thus they were going to open the second one in the series this time. Innocently, it was sitting in front of him. As though it didn't harbor a treasure – at least to him and his mother it was – of immeasurable richness.

His mother certainly wouldn't mind waiting one more day, would she…?

Rolling his eyes, he answered his question himself: yes, she would. He reached out with his arms and took a hold of the robot. Aoko had warned him that it'd taken her … extreme measures (Jii had given an involuntary shudder at that)… to open the other robot's cavern. Ah, there. If he used the knife that she'd procured for him to open it from that angle, it should… A satisfying clack was his answer as the plastic round thing that served as a kind of lid on the backside of the robot gave way.

He reached into it and pulled out a yellowish-white letter, old with age, wear and tear. The letter had obviously been manhandled a lot in its lifetime outside of the robot, very unlike the other one. Nevertheless, the careful way it had been held showed in the location of the dents that had formed due to the fingers' sweat and oil. Kaito saw that it hadn't been opened, the red seal not having been breached and remaining undamaged on top of the envelope's closed lid. It depicted a cross, with a smaller cross inside it – the outer edges of both crosses ending in a bigger shape than they had been at the stem. That was curious. His father had never been known to be a religious sort of person.

A return address had been left out. Turning it around, he looked at the old address of his house. Only skeletons of the foundation walls would be found there by now, he knew. Even a weird, pinkish-yellow stamp had been added, probably in case somebody else found the letter. His eyes grew blurry around the edges. With a sniff, he held up his arm and wiped it over his eyes. It wouldn't do to break down and cry now.

Having restored his composure – at least for the moment – he turned it back around. A letter-opener entered his sight to his left; the hand attached to it belonged of course to Aoko who looked at him with a grim face. He took it and carefully opened the letter. His eyes glossed over the written part at first, then they focused on the handwriting.

"_My dear Chikage, my dear Kaito."_

_Should you be reading this letter, I have either had the courage to give it to you to read – and will be sitting by your side – or be absent, in which case I can already guess at the reasons for that. Ever the optimist that I am, I am hopefully assuming the latter has not happened and that I am still with you." _Kaito forced a smile onto his face. Ever the optimist, huh? He'd certainly inherited that. Still, his throat couldn't help closing up at what came next.

"_Disregarding the options that lay before me while writing this letter, I have something of the utmost importance to tell you: I love you._

_Never once have I looked back with such a satisfying feeling, filled with no regrets whatsoever, as I do now. I have found my treasure in Europe. Can you remember, my dear Chikage, the night we met? I couldn't ever forget it. That rooftop, the wind, the view – it was magic that made us meet." _The next person to read this letter would be his mother, he would make sure of that. Aoko was a calming presence at his side as he read on. He wanted to get through all of it at once, so that he could work through it – and his emotions – afterwards.

"_My dear iron lady, our first date on the top of that romantic white tower couldn't have gone better. _

_I love you. Your gift to me was our son, whom I cherish for the rest of my life, of that you can be sure._

_The two of you – the greatest presents life could ever have given me – remain in my heart forever._

_Thus, with a heavy heart, I have to concede to you, my dear wife, the doubtful privilege of telling our son that it was me, all those years ago. That it would probably still be me, a few years later, although not even I can blind myself to believe that everything will work out perfectly just the way I imagine it to._

_In the case that I am not with you right now, I cannot help but to repeat myself. I love you, the two of you, my dear wife and son, forever. It is – and will always be – an honour to be allowed to call you my family. And isn't it one of the most inspiring moments – the best and most wonderful feeling of them all – when you can tell your family that you love them? I am perhaps not with you now, perhaps I am._

_You are the foundation of my very being, holding everything together and making up the base of my life. I hold you up high, my dear flames. Please trust in me as you have always done. Everything will come together, this crusade will not be in vain, you'll see._

_Yours in loving memory,_

_Toichi Kuroba."_

Right. That was all of it. Closing his eyes, he let his head sink to his chest. A grimace spread on his face. It was a painful mixture between a frown and sadness; he found short-lived solace in the fact that at least his bangs shielded Aoko momentarily from the view. With a shuddering breath, he let his mind recall the words. Kaito knew already that they would be branded into his memory forever.

Stopping at the second paragraph, he ploughed on, while sending that part to a nicely-arranged cupboard in his mind's eye, putting it right into the bottom drawer and closing it for later review.

"_My dear iron lady, … on top of that romantic white tower" _those were… hints, weren't they? His father had to have known that the possibility existed that somebody other than his wife and son could have gotten their fingers onto the letter – and he made sure that they would be busy figuring out what the old man had meant in this "letter to his family".

Blinking, he looked straight ahead, his mind's eye being far, far away, his concentration on the deciphering of his father's last two letters. Kuroba Toichi had to have known that the letters could have been found by someone else – by someone with more hostile motives, such as, oh let's say for example the search for a stone that would grant them immortality. If the letters – both of them – had been pointedly designed with those people in mind, then maybe…

Maybe the two letters' words were meant to be taken literally, after all. Maybe his father had aimed at something other than disillusioning his descendant that Pandora didn't exist – maybe he had wanted for the concerned party to figure out what was said between the lines. What had the last letter's exact wording been again?

"_To whomever it may concern_," it had said,

"_Congratulations on having come this far on your quest for immortality. Nonetheless, the stone's status goes – and will go – unchallenged, as will mine, as I regret saying."_

Stop. This first line right there was weird already. Assuming his father wasn't so different from him, the late magician would have believed in the legend of Pandora with a grain of salt. Further assuming the line had targeted an audience of believers in the stone's existence with the thought in the background that those kinds of people would believe the words of a man who hadn't believed in Pandora – but who had chased it, nonetheless – should be taken the other way around, then the line would mean that Pandora, according to the late magician, hadn't existed at all.

But. Had he specifically created this letter to keep people from going after the stone, then that would mean that the stone's status went – and would go – unchallenged, literally. That meant that, according to the men-in-brown at least, the stone existed. And would exist. Those who had been after his father would surely, had they come into the possession of this letter, have taken it seriously – and as a sort-of proof that he'd found Pandora and verified its status, no matter what said status might be. Those with a more creative imagination might have then pulled out the conclusion that Pandora existed, just not in the form of a jewel inside a jewel. Or that it didn't exist as a means towards immortality at all, rendering their whole task pointless.

Hm. Moving on.

"_For, while you could have found this in my presence, you could only be reading this letter in my absence – and the only reason for that case which comes to mind is not a pleasant one. Thus, I have only one favor to ask of you: to give the second letter to my family to read. I shall thank you deeply for doing this for me, and speak a good word for whenever your time may come."_

This next paragraph didn't seem to contain any kind of lead for Pandora at all.

"_As an illusionist, you will excuse my sense of humor, I hope."_

His sense of humor. When had he said a joke in the earlier paragraphs? Or was it that first sentence that he was referring to? Then his conclusions – about the letter not only pointing towards Pandora's existence, but more or less confirming that he'd had it in his hands – would be true.

"_I am sorry to inform you that this is not only __a__ dead end in your search alone, but that this is __**the**__ dead end."_

Or he was joking about this line in his letter. Then the search wouldn't find a dead end here at all! Meaning Pandora existed – and his father had found it!

"_I take a certain pride in saying that there is no such thing as immortality and that you are foolish to waste your life looking for it when it does not even exist."_

A sentence that could have been spoken, or, as it is in this case, written down, by Kaito. So if they shared more than the mantle, what would that matter? They obviously were two very similar people, in profession just like in their attitude towards life.

"_Mark my words, traveler, spend what is left of your days in a more valuable fashion – life is rich in choice, should you need it, and also in opportunities and occasions."_

A satisfied grin spread over his face. Traveler, it had said. As in, travelling for a purpose. Especially the focus on the traveler's "choice" was important, Kaito believed. One could choose which way to go: you could either search for immortality or spend your life with the people you loved, as was illustrated in the next sentence:

"_Do not make yourself miss out."_

That would mean that Kaito wasn't done yet. And that his – and the organization's search for Pandora wasn't over in any form or shape at all. His grin developed fangs as he once more turned towards the letter that was laying forgotten in his hands. Leaving out the sentimental pieces and parts – he'd get to that _later_, at night, when he'd worked through the meaning this letter could have for someone not emotionally attached to the person who'd written it – and shoveling them one by one into the neat little cupboard's drawers in his mind, he focused on the most down-to-earth parts of the letter.

He'd already figured out that there were hints in the letter earlier, so now he had to guess at what they could be. What was it that he always wrote into his notices before he would steal things? What, where, when and how (though that last one was only a topping to the cake, one that he sometimes left out). So, going by that, the letter would include hints for the place, right?

Then the third one would consist of leads for some sort of time; a meeting time? His gaze rested on the last of the robots, resting on its feet diagonally in front of him to his left hand side. An appointment? His eyebrows creased together. No, that couldn't be. A long-lost suspicion reared its head at his thoughts. Treacherous, wasn't it, the way he got his hopes up at the slightest piece of circumstantial evidence? He reached for the robot, intending to open it, too, and figure out the truth. If it crushed his hopes into pieces or not, it was better to knowfor certain what was true.

The knife was mechanically used to open the lid – this time it was located on the foot of the robot – and he reached in with his hand, dreading frightfully the outcome of the next letter's reading. When his hand touched something papery, he closed it around the thing and pulled it out. What struck him as different immediately was its size. It was smaller than the other two letters.

In fact, it was only one thin piece of paper, about five by five centimeters big if he had to guess. And there was only one word written on it, too. Three letters and an exclamation mark.

"_Now_!" it said.

_I was running from the things that you'd say_

_The air grew colder. Ah, the air conditioning had been turned on. Briefly, he averted his eyes from the window to verify his observation. His mother, who was sitting a few seats further ahead of him, was chatting animatedly with her neighbor, while neither he nor Aoko had yet felt inclined to do so with the one to her right. Certainly, his mother was by far more used to flying and situations where she'd meet and get to know new people than they were. She had immediately started to speak to the people sitting next to her, while Kaito and Aoko only had quietly assumed their seats and waited for the departure as if they were waiting for their execution, with deathly silence and nervously hunched shoulders, side by side. When Kaito didn't want to look straight ahead anymore, he directed his eyes back towards the outside world._

_I was running from the things that you'd say_

The woman was old. She was wearing a vendor's apron above her darkish blue ankle-long skirt and a light green T-shirt as she hurried through the streets. The white piece of cloth on her head signaled that she was a seller at a vegetable shop, the kanji on top of it loudly proclaiming the name of the shop. Sweat was quickly wiped off with the back of her hand as she ran towards her destination. Clack-clack, her quick steps drowned in the noise of cars passing by. Around that corner, then she should be there. Determined, she rounded the corner and came to a halt as she looked into a dark, shadowed alleyway. She pulled out a piece of paper from her apron, then carefully ambled towards the refuse dumpsters close to the entrance on her side of the small alley.

As she glanced back to the piece of paper – directions of a sort were written onto it in a careless manner – she missed the figure coming towards her from the other side of the alley. When she looked up once more, having noticed something moving in the upper corner of her vision, the old woman saw the dark shade of a hooded figure only barely visible in the dark alleyway. What her eyes immediately zoomed in on wasn't the black-cloaked gestalt, however. The small, frightened girl holding one of his hands was by far worthier of her focus. "Ayami!" The name escaped her lips without a thought.

The reaction was instantaneous. The girl, Ayami, whispered back "Obaa-chan." and tried to get the hand holding hers to loosen up and let her go. Instead, as though he wasn't aware of the action or didn't care at all, the man asked the woman, "Did everything go as planned?"

"Yes! She did as you demanded. Nobody suspects anything. Please let her go!" Her concerned gaze never wavered from the child. That had been all that the man had needed, apparently, for his hand released the girl's in response to her utterances. Ayami made a beeline for the old woman, falling into her body and hugging her as if her life depended on it. Silently, she began crying into the older woman's apron. The old woman, as well, had tears running down her cheeks by then.

One last time, she looked up at the figure opposite her and demanded, "Please leave us alone from now on!"

A huff of breath – a derisive snort, if anything – was her answer. A deep, male voice rung out in a nonchalant way, "Oh, maybe." With fear in her eyes, the old woman regarded the silhouette of the hooded man for a brief moment before she hurriedly fled the place with the frightened child in tow.

The black figure turned around and left the alley as well, chuckling quietly. Really, everything was coming together rather splendidly, wasn't it? And she didn't even have to change much about her appearance at all…

Had the old woman been told that it had been a woman who had given her back her grandchild, she probably wouldn't have believed the people telling her.

A smug smile adorning her face, the kidnapper took off the thin, hooded black coat alongside with the face-covering scarf and went towards the bag lying innocently at the other entrance of the alleyway. The woman opened it and pulled out a light brown leather jacket that she put on. The long, blond hair that flowed in careless waves from her head was pulled back in a makeshift ponytail. Once the coat and scarf were gone, a stylish black one-piece leather biker suit was revealed underneath. A fitting helmet was then put on, the coat and the scarf went into the bag that was left behind in the alleyway.

She got out of the alley, turned left and strolled without a care in the world to the motorbike that was parked just a few meters away. The woman turned up the visor of her helmet slightly, her hands pulling out a mobile and rapidly typing away at a short text message. "_Goal achieved. Wait for dove_." the illuminated message said before she sent it.

Having arrived at the motor bike, the woman then shortly looked up into the light blue sky, seemingly mumbling to herself, "What's your next move I wonder? How will you answer this slight to your name, my little white dove? Which direction will you fly?"

Curious with a smile playing on her lips, she looked up to the sky in askance, before getting onto the bike and driving off. Things were about to get interesting.

_I was running from the things that you'd say_

When he'd finally found some time alone – Aoko was taking a bath and his mother and Jii were happily creating dinner for them – creating being the right word for what kinds of experiments were going on in there – he'd sat down in the living room together with the robots and the letters that they'd found, staring dumbfounded at all of the items and having all the words go through his head one more time, just to make sure that he'd understood it correctly and made no mistakes, completely glossing over the fact that he'd presented his theory to his mother already who had verified and confirmed it for him.

He needed the short amount of time that he had to himself to steel himself and to prepare – mentally – for what he knew would be the solution to the dilemma presented in the letters. They would need to act soon, otherwise the chance that Aoko might slip up while in public would only increase exponentially. After all, they couldn't very well keep her inside all the time, could they? Also, the chance for the organization to make the next move –and catch the Kurobas off guard – would not be reduced by idly waiting for them to do so. That was also why he'd made that phone call earlier. Hopefully one of his own acquaintances would be able to do something about his request. She did owe him one favor after all, didn't she? Well, they'd find out tomorrow morning.

Kaito let his gaze wander once more over all the things that the late magician had left them. His father had to be kidding, surely. (no pun intended)

Glancing back at the three robots, Kaito started shaking his head in denial. That had to be a grand joke right there! He could see it! Slouching down, all he could do was stare forlornly at the pieces of paper that he was holding in his hands. The sentences on them presented a riddle, he knew. A riddle only he should ever get his hands on and decipher correctly… as he apparently had.

…

"But why Europe!?" Kaito whined. His eyebrows came almost together, his expression was that of a kicked puppy. Oh, he was being pathetic. Europe. Of all places available, his father had chosen Europe for them to go to? Why not the Sahara, as well, while they were at it? It was unknown territory, with unknown enemies (not that he'd gleaned much in that direction from his predecessor's notes) and a very much unknown police force.

Heaving a big sigh, the Kuroba heir forced himself to sit up a little straighter. Oh well. If his father thought that would lead him to the right place, then it would be so!

Silence greeted his new-found determination.

A small smirk beginning to form on his lips, the teenager-turned-thief considered his options.

There would be as-of-yet-still-unknown friends and allies to be found there, too, after all. And unknown safe havens. And unknown tools_. Oooooh~!_ If he'd be able to turn this to his advantage, that would take a huge load off his shoulders. And he already had one known "_colleague"_ over there, too.

His expression developing a decidedly wicked grin, with teeth and all and teetering precariously on the edge of sanity, the teenage magician considered all the things that he had at his disposal already.

Europe, it was!

_I was running from the things that you'd say_

_He was startled out of his window-watching when a hand found its way onto his arm and held on tightly. When he glanced towards his right, he saw Aoko clenching her eyes shut in obvious distress. True, she'd never flown before, had she? Kaito moved his left hand over hers and gave it a gentle squeeze. Her eyes flew open briefly, to regard him fearfully, then closed again to stay shut – with less force, this time. Reassured that she wouldn't need much more for the time being, he went back to look out the window._

_I was running from the things that you'd say_

He was finally coming home. The steps to his front door certainly did seem to lighten his mood once they came into view. The taxi he'd taken was driving off while he opened the gate to the garden. It had been a long day. With a sigh, he closed the gate behind himself and walked towards the house. With every step he took, the burden of the day lifted itself a little bit more off his shoulders and he was almost at peace when he reached the entrance.

Getting out the keys, he opened the door with a clack. Baaya, his housekeeper, came to meet him at the entrance as he had closed the door and was slipping out of his shoes and into house slippers. Curiosity killed the cat, wasn't it? The slight smile was wiped off his face with concerning speed as he thought back to the person that had quite literally been killed that day. Another sigh, before he greeted his housekeeper.

"Good evening, Baaya." He said, his feet automatically moving towards the living room.

"Good evening, Young Master. Did you eat already?" The old woman was understandably concerned, her mothering skills were legendary.

"Yes, I did, thank you. Is father home?" The young detective hadn't seen his father's shoes at the entrance, but then again, that didn't mean much. His father could have come in through the garage, as well.

"No, your father has called. It shall be late once more. He only came home once today, to leave some of his things in the bureau, and then left for the station once more." He answered her statement with a noncommittal noise, crossing the distance to assume his favorite seat in the living room. His satchel was discarded besides it, as he pulled out the folder that he'd been working on most lately. Baaya threw one last, amused look at him and left for whatever she'd been doing before he'd arrived. Soon, noises of somebody cleaning could be heard in the faint distance of the long corridors in the Hakuba mansion, as the Superintendant's son, Saguru, slowly opened the file.

That murder case that had happened just that Friday after the week of Kaitô Kid appearances and implicated Kaitô Kid was a most troubling one. Why did the girl confess so readily when she could have kept quiet? And if she'd been threatened by the thief, how could she have been so sure that he hadn't watched her still, when she'd confessed her scheme? Things didn't add up. To spice everything up, he _still_ had no lead as to where his classmates could have been abducted. A headache was the least of his worries, he felt.

What could Kaito have become involved in? It was concerning, the speed with which the magician had wormed his way into the sleuth's heart. Hakuba was worried about him, there was no sense in denying it. And he was worried about the inspector's daughter and the magician's mother who had apparently been kidnapped, as well. He was very much at a loss, too, as to what could be the best course of action, what with all of the recent developments bothering him. The kidnapping had only been the first of a series of happenings that he ascribed to the amateur magician's life. Oh, he'd been flabbergasted when he'd been presented with the bombing of the Kurobas' house.

_Hakuba had been going through his latest findings when he'd gotten the phone call. One of the Task Force's members had called him on his mobile._

"_Hakuba-kun?" he'd been addressed. "Division Two wants you to come testify and give your statement."_

_Since he'd not been involved with the Task Force any more for at least a few weeks at the time, he'd been confused and asked, "Concerning what, exactly?"_

_Imagine his surprise at having been told the following: "Concerning the recent kidnapping case of the inspector's daughter."_

_Imagine his surprise at having been told the following: "Concerning the recent kidnapping case of the inspector's daughter." Needless to say, he'd gone there as soon as he could. Only to find out that both his classmates and the junior magician's mother had apparently been kidnapped in the aftermath of an explosion at the magician's house. The whole day at the police station had gone by in a numb state after he'd heard about everything that had happened._

The investigation into the reason the explosion – and the subsequent kidnapping were still going on. It seemed as though they were related, the events being almost too coincidental to make sense otherwise.

Well, he'd been banned from the investigation just like the inspector had been – he was a friend of the kidnapped (not to mention that half the Task Force had been murmuring about a possible liaison between the detective and the inspector's daughter; never mind that they had already been gossiping and betting on Kaito and her getting together for a long time before he'd arrived in Tokyo), thus liable to be emotionally too attached to be able to objectively investigate the cases. That was what good connections were in place for: he was able to get updates about the investigations about both Nakamori's daughter, Kuroba Kaito and his mother whenever he wanted them.

And then the thief had decided to appear everywhere at once. Or was it someone else who had orchestrated those seemingly random merchandise distributions? Nothing could be ruled out. Maybe it was the thief's assistant who was looking for Kaito – Hakuba knew without a shadow of doubt that it was Kaito who was the phantom thief Kid – and who didn't know what else he could do to garner the attention of everyone?

Or maybe Kaito had bombed his own house and kidnapped himself. Yes, that made just as much sense as everything else. Urgh. His left hand went to rub his temple in annoyance. All of them were running in circles, like chickens without heads, because the thief would _of course_ have to go and bomb his own house and then kidnap the inspector's daughter like that. That was probably what started the whole thing off. Or not.

Or maybe this new development in the thief's life had already begun much earlier?

He knew that the prankster had experienced some extraordinary months ever since his mother had broken down – judging from what he'd learned from Aoko – but he didn't know if Kaito lived them differently from what constituted as the magician's normal way of life as well or not. One thing was certain, though. The cat-and-mouse game that the thief was prone to play with his beloved Task Force had been interrupted by somebody or something ages ago already. The people shooting at him were hard to ignore once you opened your eyes and believed them. What more had changed that the thief would be pushed out of his usual MO and decide to appear everywhere in some shape or form now?

Normally, Kaitô Kid would want to steal something. Then he'd send a note to the police, saying what he'd steal, when and where – not necessarily formulated that clearly but the gist would be understandable. Next both sides would prepare for the heist. The thief would swoop in punctually, steal the thing – a jewel going by the most recent cases –, taunt the police (notably the inspector) about their failure, have them chase him and disappear into the night, sometimes on his glider. That was the short version of the thief's approach to stealing; a good workout for the police, and a good bashing of any of his chasers' egos on top of that. It was a good thing Hakuba had signed himself out of that a month ago.

There were also those cases where somebody wanted to impersonate the thief and sent a fake notice to the police. In those cases, the real thief would respond by either stealing the thing (when the person had asked him for help), humiliating and exposing the fake or both.

Things were geared differently at this point of time, however. A murder had been committed in the name of the thief. Now, that wasn't what was frapping. That had happened before, after all. What was disturbing everybody was the fact that the thief hadn't yet answered to the slight to his reputation. It had been two days, after all, since the murder at the book reading had been committed. The aftermath – and the shouting – hadn't been pleasing to his ears, either, he remembered with a wince.

Things weren't resolved yet – and they wouldn't be, not until the thief had responded to the taunt. For, whatever else people thought it was, it represented a challenge, most of all. _"There, I committed a murder. I blamed you. What will you do about it?"_ It was frustrating not to be able to do anything about it. As a Kaitô Kid expert, he could only give his opinion on the case, until everything was cleared up, he didn't have an ounce of influence on the investigators' conclusions. To crown it all, it wasn't like they could go up to the phantom thief and ask for his alibi. A secret identity was secret for a reason, never mind that Hakuba knew who it was behind the mask. Not even he could ask him. He didn't know where the amateur magician _was_, after all.

The thief had created quite the quandary for him – and now he wasn't even around to enjoy his irritation. _Where on earth had he gone?_

With a frustrated huff, he closed the folder – he'd only come as far as the first page anyways – and stood up. He was exhausted and should go to bed. Picking up his satchel from its leaning position against the sofa, he started. Something was different than usual. Glancing up, he saw that there was a piece of paper looking out from underneath one of the chairs close to the entrance of his father's study. It was just a decorating chair that had its arms covered with cloth and was standing beside the living room door leading to the Superintendant's home office. His father had put something into his bureau, hadn't Baaya said something the like earlier? The piece of paper had probably slid out of whatever it had been that he'd carried there.

He decided that it was probably best if he put it onto the table in the study. Depositing his satchel in his favorite chair, he made his way to the piece of paper. Yes, it looked like it had fallen down. Lifting it to his face, he read what it said. Never let it be said that curiosity didn't run in his veins, too.

What was on it, however, didn't make any kind of sense to him.

"APTX4869." It said.

"Distribution: in accordance with That Person only a selected few were chosen."

This was followed by a seemingly arbitrary, short collection of alcoholic beverages. Right. His father's job, his father's business. His sleep-befuddled mind didn't care to find out what kind of code this paper was written in.

So as not to disturb anything on the desk, he carefully laid it onto a small, hip-high book shelf and closed the door behind him as he once more entered the living room. A beeping sound made him aware that he'd received a text message. His glance towards the old pendulum clock confirmed that it was most definitely after midnight. Who…?

The content of the message didn't clear anything up for him, either.

"To Hakuba Saguru,

In case you're free

tomorrow at four o'clock,

I might have a lead on the

author's murder case.

Edogawa Conan."

Where did the Sleeping Detective's assistant get his phone number…?

A short moment of contemplation later, he had his answer: they'd exchanged numbers at the case on that island all that time ago, hadn't they?

Well, if he wasn't free yet, he'd just have to make sure he'd have time for that meeting.

_I was running from the things that you'd say_

Nakamori-keibu stared. The boss of the Kaitô Kid Task Force considered the scrap of paper sitting innocently along with a letter and its envelope in front of him on his desk with a decidedly withering glare. Inside, he was a volcano only waiting for the right time to erupt. Nobody wanted to cross him during one of _those_ times, and, unconsciously or not, members of the Task Force and outsiders alike made sure not to be close to him or to deliver bad news to him then.

Just what did the insane thief think he was doing? And why would he do this of all things possible? At this time, moreover?

No, the inspector didn't know an answer to any of those questions. Additionally, he didn't know if he should humor the thief or not. What the hell had the unorthodox larcenist been thinking when he'd deposited a plane ticket to Paris on his most dedicated pursuer's desk?

_I was running from the things that you'd say_

Upon exiting the taxi, their ears were assaulted by a cacophony of noises and a decidedly weird mixture of smells. The three of them – for Jii had decided to stay behind, "_to look after the doves among other things, Young Master, don't worry about them_" – gathered up their belongings and, after having paid the driver, they made their way towards the airport's entrance. The entrance hall was as big and roomy as any airport's entrance hall could be; glass windows seemed to have been installed everywhere and the metallic gleam that bounced off the walls made the hall with its hustle and bustle of people appear bigger and fuller than it was.

His mother was in the lead. With sure steps she guided Aoko and him to the check-in counter. They checked in with no problems, giving their suitcases to the people manning the counter. Two more hours of wait and then they would be leaving Japan. After going through the customs check, they made their way towards a small café and sat down. They would need to be at the gate around fifty minutes before boarding, but other than that they still had about an hour to waste. So why not waste it with a beverage of their choice?

The waiter appeared shortly thereafter and took their orders. As his mother and Aoko engaged in small talk, Kaito's mind disappeared into his musings. It certainly was a compliment to their disguise skills, wasn't it, the fact that nobody had recognized Aoko yet? They'd taken the precaution of disguises despite the fact that few kidnapping victims would, almost a week after their kidnapping, willingly and with all the calm on the world be boarding a plane out of the country and not, let's say, contact the authorities once they were not with their kidnapper any more.

It was a setup few would believe in the realm of probable happenings, so that ruled out quite a few of his mother's and his concerns already in the first place. Nobody would look twice at normal passengers on a plane, never mind the thought crossing their minds that said passengers could possibly be kidnapping victims going on a holiday abroad. (not that any of them were in the right mindset for _that_ at the moment)

His classmate was wearing an inconspicuous pullover that was a bit too large for her over a light blue T-shirt that blended in well with the lighter shade of grey that the pullover featured and dark blue jeans. Her shoes were nondescript, as well, making her whole appearance look rather conservative and boring. A far cry from her personality's characteristics.

Her hair was tied and pinned up on the back of her head, not tamed as much as that it simply disappeared in the ensemble, some locks falling out and circling the pins playfully, as though they'd been arranged like that purposefully. It gave her an adult-like look that was only enhanced by the mask that Chikage had attached to the upper part of her face. His mother had insisted on pinning back her bangs, which only added to the image she was trying to portray, namely that of a student in the middle of her university studies, around her twenties and probably studying something like dead languages, literature or history, going by her appearance.

Kaito, too, was decked out in a similar attire. He had the advantage of having crafted a mask to his measurements before ever having started the whole kidnapping event and shorter hair by far, so he'd just pulled that over his head, kneaded it into shape and that was that. Or at least it had looked like that to Aoko, as she'd complained after he'd managed to properly stick the mask to his face and gone through a few motions and grimaces to test its endurance.

The background story they'd fabricated for the three of them was that _Kurogi Sayaka_, their "professor", would be attending a conference organized by a partner university starting on Monday and that they had been allowed to accompany her there in order to assist her in her presentation at that conference and collect some experiences abroad. So far, so good.

Fortunately the story let them have some leeway when it came to Aoko's nervousness: they'd agreed to mention (in passing, of course) that it was Aoko's first flight so that other people's curiosity would be satisfied and their suspicion assuaged. Looking back at her, Kaito had to concede that the girl honestly wasn't helping matters much by glancing left and right every once in a while. When she'd done that often enough to irritate him, the teenage-magician finally decided to step in and rudely cut into the conversation that the two women were having.

"Mou, Aoko! Stop drumming your fingers on the table that much! It makes one think you are developing a nervous tic with the way you keep doing that!" The two of them looked into each other's eyes shortly, before she averted her gaze. The girl knew exactly what he'd caught her doing, and it hadn't been what he'd called her out on doing. She'd be careful the next time she caught herself doing that. Her looking back at him with a look that said she'd understood what he'd meant to communicate was all the reassurance that he'd needed. They'd be fine.

_I was running from the things that you'd say_

_What would everyone think once they discovered that they'd gone? That they'd upped and left, just like that? The airport had gone by, the plane was ready and in starting position. When he craned his neck to look back a bit, he'd see the testing of the flaps. The preparation wouldn't take long, he knew. And then they were already rolling. He saw the grass close to the runway move past slowly before picking up speed, going faster and faster before all he could make out of the closest grass patches was something green passing by. Kaito felt the front wheel leave the ground, then the back wheels followed, almost unnoticed, as the plane was steered into a steep position to the ground. The angle was increased for a moment, then held steadily. They were off._

_I was running from the things that you'd say_

**AN:** Never, EVER, under any circumstances underestimate the length a chapter can assume once you stop counting words and let the characters have a say. A lesson I learned the hard way… ;_) Ah, well. More for you to read!

Gods, I love to write dream scenes! :_D they flow so easily from my fingers, they might as well be rainbows! *grin*

Thanks to _Loner Kid_ for the advice; I'm never sure about ratings…

…

Also, I have to say that the part with the letter to Toichi's family was far sadder than I thought it would be… -I- was the one crying while I wrote half of the scene of Kaito reading it…! And then I had to leave it for a day just because I couldn't continue writing like that… I hope you liked it and that I did justice to the image of the elder Kuroba…

…

And what on earth was Hakuba thinking when he added the piece of paper that he found into this chapter?! He wasn't supposed to find much at all, never mind _**THAT**_…! …what's going on with my characters these days? I can't let them roam around freely any more – they just keep getting into trouble! I swear the meeting between Conan and Hakuba had NOT been planned this early in the story line… and the blond didn't even want another snippet with him in it to be written into this chapter, so you'll have to wait until next time to see it. I can somehow see a trend there… the last few snippets of the last chapter hadn't wanted to be put into chapter 9 either… hm. Ah well. More for you to read next time! ;_)

And "thank you very much" to everybody for reviewing! I can't refrain from dancing whenever I see a new review in my email account! *dances another jig just because*

I hope everything was clear so far – should you have any questions, remarks or comments, please do not hesitate to review or pm me! I know my mind works in crazy ways sometimes…

In addition to that I have to say that I'm not as deluded to think this couldn't be better, so if any of you would like to _**BETA READ**_, please contact me – again, via pm or reviews, I don't mind either way.

I can't keep using my friends – who aren't even in any of the two fandoms – to beta my fanfiction content wise; they're confused with the story lines already, because I keep getting new ideas into my head all the time, and that makes for a veeeeery long story-time whenever I try to explain just what kind of story I need their help for exactly… fortunately for me, they don't seem to be tired of me yet and keep listening to what I tell them and give advice as well as they can _Every. Single. Time._

I've got awesome friends. :_)

_In any case, __**thank you for reading**__!_


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